Walther Kühn

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Walther Kühn (born December 27, 1892 in Posen , † December 4, 1962 in Bonn ) was a German politician of the FDP .

Life and work

Kühn attended high school in Poznan. After graduating from high school in 1911, he studied law and political science in Tübingen , Vienna and Halle an der Saale and took part in the First World War from 1914 to 1918. After the second state examination in 1921, he entered the civil service. From 1926 he was a councilor in Frankfurt (Oder) , in 1931 he became district administrator in the Oststernberg district . In 1933 he was temporarily removed from office for political reasons. In the same year, however, he was again district administrator, now in the Waldenburg district , and a year later in Liegnitz , where he held this office until 1939. In that year he became government vice-president in the district of Marienwerder (Gdansk-West Prussia) and district of Gdansk (Gdansk-West Prussia) and later district president in the district of Bromberg (Gdansk-West Prussia) , where he was removed from office in 1945. In January 1945, Kühn was dismissed on the orders of Heinrich Himmler as "unreliable in every respect" because he refused to implement the scorched earth policy in West Prussia . He was sent to the Matzkau concentration camp , where he was sentenced to death, but pardoned for serving in an SS criminal battalion and serving on the Eastern Front, where he was wounded several times while defending Danzig .

As a result of the expulsion , Kühn came to West Germany. He initially worked as a laborer in agriculture and later as a lawyer . He was federal chairman of the association of evicted civil servants, employees and workers (Verbaost) and until his death deputy federal chairman of the German civil service association . He was also the spokesman for the West Prussian country team .

Political party

Kühn was a member of the German People's Party during the Weimar Republic . In 1933 he joined the NSDAP . In 1935 he urged the issuance of a membership card, since he had already declared his membership before the admission ban and, as district administrator, it seemed desirable "that the senior officials are not only National Socialists, but also formally belong to the party". In 1945 he was a co-founder of the FDP .

MP

He was a member of the German Bundestag from its first election in 1949 until his death and was the domestic political spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group. From 1949 to 1953 he was parliamentary director of his group. 1953 to 1957 he was deputy chairman of the Bundestag committee for civil service law. From 1957 until his death he headed the parliamentary group's domestic policy group .

Student associations

During his studies in 1911 Kühn became a member of the Tübingen Choir of Zollern . The fact that he also belonged to the singers Arion Leipzig , Fridericiana Halle , Bardia Bonn , Old Prussia Königsberg , Leopoldina Breslau , Thuringia Heidelberg , Prague University Choir Barden zu Munich and the University Choir Barden zu Vienna led to his nickname "Papa Kühn, the multi-band man" . From 1955 until his death he was chairman of the old gentlemen's association of German singers .

Publications

• Outline of the history of the Zollern singers. In: Zollern newspaper. 1929, pp. 27 to 31.

literature

• Helge Kleifeld: "Turn to the Spirit"? Educational and university policy activities of the interdenominational student corporations at West German universities 1945–1961. Cologne 2002, short résumé of Walther Kühn.
• Harald Lönnecker : Two souls live (d) en, alas, in my breast - The German policy of the FDP. In: Hans-Georg Balder, (Ed.): Germany's division and the Germans. A critical consideration. Hilden 2001, pp. 180–203, here p. 184 f.
• Harald Lönnecker : "... voluntarily never to leave here ..." The Prague German student body 1867–1945. Cologne 2008 (= treatises on student and higher education. Volume 16), p. 223 f.
• Stickler, Matthias: East German means all German. Organization, self-image and objectives of the German expellee associations 1949–1972 , Düsseldorf 2004 (= research and sources on contemporary history. Volume 4), p. 294.
• Sagel, Zdebel: The dispute over the West Prussian State Museum in Münster.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Kühn (Bonn), Walther . In: Martin Schumacher (Ed.): MdB - The People's Representation 1946–1972. - [Kaaserer to Kynast] (=  KGParl online publications ). Commission for the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties e. V., Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-00-020703-7 , pp. 690–691 , urn : nbn: de: 101: 1-2014070812574 ( kgparl.de [PDF; 508 kB ; accessed on June 19, 2017]).
2. ↑ Died: Walther Kühn . In: Der Spiegel . No. 50 , 1962 ( online ).
3. ↑ Paul Meißner (Ed.): Alt-Herren-Directory of the German Singers. Leipzig 1934, p. 97.

Web links

• Bold, Walther . In: East German Biography (Kulturportal West-Ost)