Walter Rücker

Walter Rücker (also: Walther Rücker * 16th December 1905 in Haspe , Westphalia, † 3. October 1981 in Hagen ) was a German politician of the CDU in the Soviet zone of occupation and in the early days of the GDR . He was a member of the first Thuringian state parliament in the post-war period and the German People's Council and the Provisional People's Chamber . In addition, he was at times the Thuringian Minister for Trade and Supply.

Life

Rücker was born the son of a blacksmith in the small Westphalian town of Haspe, now a district of Hagen. After elementary school , Rücker attended the Hasper Oberrealschule , which he left at the age of 17 in 1923 after he had reached upper secondary school . He then completed a banking apprenticeship at Barmer Bankverein in Hagen from 1923 to 1925 . Then Rücker worked for two years as an accountant at the Hagen branch of Disconto-Gesellschaft . In 1928 he got a job as an official at the employment office in Hagen. During this time, Rücker caught up with the Abitur level, so that in 1930 he was able to take the Abitur as an external student at the Münster Provincial College. He then began to study theology in Jena , which he continued from 1931 to 1933 in Münster, Westphalia. In 1930 Rücker joined the German State Party (DStP). In 1933 Rücker was forcibly de-registered due to national unreliability. He was banned from studying at German universities. This was preceded by two brief arrests for anti-Nazi statements. His party dissolved itself under the Gleichschaltungsgesetz .

After his de-registration, Rücker first returned to his homeland. He found a job as a hardener at the auto and wagon spring factory Luhn & Pulvermacher in what is now Hagen's Haspe district. On May 10, 1935, he was arrested again for allegedly preparing for high treason and remained in custody until August 8, 1935. Then Rücker found a job as a representative of Deutsche Krankenversicherung AG (DKV). In 1937 he became an insurance officer at the DKV branch in Erfurt . As a result, he moved to Erfurt, where he was registered as resident from February 5, 1938.

On March 26, 1940, Rücker was drafted for military service in the Air Force . His last station was Schleswig-Holstein , where he was only released as sergeant in the reserve on July 25, 1945, more than two and a half months after the end of the war. Formally he was then briefly in British captivity . Then Rücker moved back to his last place of residence in Erfurt. As a former theology student without any Nazi exposure, he found a job as a religion teacher at the Evangelical Church for the church province of Saxony from October 1, 1945 and taught at Erfurt high schools. On the same day, Rücker became a member of the CDU.

Political career

In the first CDU board and committee elections, which took place in January 1946, Rücker was immediately elected as the second state secretary of the CDU Thuringia. As a result, he was now active in Weimar, but stayed in Erfurt. Rücker remained in this position until April 1948, when he was elected First State Secretary of the Thuringian CDU. Rücker soon became a member of important parliamentary bodies. He was named for the CDU as a member of the Advisory Assembly of Thuringia, which was active from the end of June to the end of September 1946. As a result, Rücker ran for the first state elections, which took place on October 20, 1946. At the constituent session of the state parliament, he was elected second vice-president of the state parliament. Through this office, Rücker was proposed by the CDU for a seat in the 1st German People's Council , in which he sat from March 1948. He was also represented as a member of the two successor parliaments, the Second German People's Council and the Provisional People's Chamber. In April 1948, Rücker was also elected First State Secretary of the Thuringian CDU. He held this position until the IVth National Party Congress in May 1950. At the party congress, Rücker was elected First Deputy of the CDU's regional chairman, August Bach . He held this office until October 14, 1950. In addition, on July 7, 1950, he was appointed Minister for Trade and Supply of the State of Thuringia in the government under Werner Eggerath for the refugee Heinrich Gillessen .

After the party congress in April 1950, the rivalry between Bach and Rücker led to the gradual dismissal of all "Rücker loyal speakers at the regional office". It ended with Rücker's expulsion from the party on October 25, 1950. In the opinion of Georg Dertinger , Rücker started on a confrontational course with the party leadership from October 1949. Contrary to Rücker's ideas - after the previous Secretary General Dertinger had been appointed Foreign Minister - it was not he, but Gerald Götting who became General Secretary of the CDU. According to Dertinger, Rücker turned down the offer to become chairman of the parliamentary group in the Provisional People's Chamber because the post was supposedly too little for him. In the end, Rücker even tried to keep his ministerial office by switching to the SED . When this project failed and Willy Rutsch (CDU) took office on November 21, 1950, Rücker did not immediately leave for the Federal Republic, as older sources claim. Rather, he reported sick by the end of 1951. After that, Rücker initially acted as a trustee for a company in Stotternheim until February 1952 . He then found a job as a loan officer at the German Central Bank in Erfurt, where he worked until July 1952. As a result, Rücker found a job as a commercial clerk in the Erfurt Lindenmühle. In August 1952, Rücker was briefly imprisoned, but released after he had given a written promise to keep quiet. From January 1955, Walter Rücker was registered as resident again in his hometown of Hagen and worked there as a savings bank employee.

literature

• Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990 . Volume 2: Maassen - Zylla . KG Saur, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-598-11177-0 , p. 741.
• Michael Richter: Die Ost-CDU 1948–1952 (= research and sources on contemporary history , volume 19). 2nd Edition. Droste, Düsseldorf 1991, ISBN 3-7700-0945-2 , p. 417.
• Harald Schulze: Reports of the Magdeburg church leadership on the conferences of the provincial synod 1946–1989 . Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-525-55760-4 , p. 710.
• Karl Schmitt, Torsten Oppelland : Parties in Thuringia. A handbook (= handbooks on the history of parliamentarism and political parties , volume 16). Droste, Düsseldorf 2008, ISBN 978-3-7700-5292-9 , p. 47f.
• Jochen Lengemann : Thuringian state parliaments 1919–1952. Biographical manual . Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-412-22179-9 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Karl Schmitt, Torsten Oppelland: Parties in Thuringia. A manual . Droste, Düsseldorf 2008, p. 48.
2. ↑ Michael Richter: Die Ost-CDU 1948–1952 . 2nd Edition. Droste, Düsseldorf 1991, p. 253.
3. ↑ Michael Richter: Die Ost-CDU 1948–1952 . 2nd Edition. Droste, Düsseldorf 1991, p. 253.