Werner Kaltefleiter

Werner Kaltefleiter (born April 21, 1937 in Hagen ; † March 17, 1998 in Kiel ) was a German political scientist . His research interests were in election research , media research and international relations , especially security policy .

Academic stations

Starting in the winter semester of 1957, Kaltefleiter studied economics at the University of Cologne (elective political science), where he received his doctorate and also completed his habilitation in Cologne. In 1968/1969 he received a Kennedy Fellowship from the DAAD at Harvard University and was there a. a. Student of Carl J. Friedrich and Henry Kissinger . From 1970 until his death, Kaltefleiter taught in the successor to Michael Freund as a full professor at the Institute for Political Science at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel , which he headed for many years as managing director. In addition, he was vice president of Kiel University from 1975 to 1981 and was very influential in terms of university politics. Being very close to the CDU, he was initially sharply hostile by parts of the student body and responded aggressively and persistently. The relationship with the politically left-wing Wilfried Röhrich - since December 1979 holder of a second professorship in political science at Kiel University - was bad from the start and at times degenerated into a real "war", which culminated in the fact that the study curriculum from the winter semester 1989 / 90 was subdivided for some time according to scientific theory directions (empirical-structural: Kaltefleiter, historical-dialectical: Röhrich).

Between 1970 and 1974, in addition to his teaching activities in Kiel, he was head of the social science institute of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Alfter near Bonn and during his time there he worked in particular on applied election and media research.

Kaltefleiter's thesis (in economics) was written by Alfred Müller-Armack . He was a student of the founder of the political science school in Cologne , Ferdinand A. Hermens , where Kaltefleiter initially received his doctorate and then completed his habilitation with a thesis on the role of the head of state in parliamentary systems.

Political science attitude

As a student of Müller-Armack, Kaltefleiter advocated an economic system based on a market economy. Closely linked to this was his legitimation of representative democracy, which, according to his plea , should be based on majority voting based on the British model. With this he was fully in the tradition of his academic teacher Ferdinand A. Hermens. This demand brought him constant criticism from various quarters. In many press and radio interviews, until his death, he always warned of the dangers of fraying the German party system, which could only be countered by introducing majority voting rights. He was skeptical or even negative about the personalized proportional representation that had been in place in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1949 and usually ended lectures on this topic with the saying “ We need an end to the listocracy ”.

In terms of foreign and security policy, he took a purely confrontational course with the Soviet Union in relation to the East-West conflict . Kaltefleiter was an advocate of European unification, but increasingly warned against the loss of the control capacities of the EU member states and thus against an excessive bureaucracy in Brussels.

Political-scientific interventions

The book Die Schweigespirale published by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann in 1980 . Public opinion - Kaltefleiter has strongly influenced our social skin . In the wake of the debate about this publication, he massively advocated the establishment of a privately organized broadcasting system - which, however, he called for alongside the public broadcasting service.

In 1981, Kaltefleiter initiated the establishment of the Society for Security Policy and Arms Control as the ideal sponsor of the Institute for Security Policy (ISUK, later ISPK) at the University of Kiel, of which he became the founding director. The aim, according to Kaltefleiter, was the emotion-free elucidation of the potential for conflict in the world. Not only the military balance of power and the questions of equilibrium and disarmament in East and West should be examined, but also economic backgrounds, knowledge of which is important to avoid military conflicts.

He was also the organizer of the annual “Postgraduate Summer Course on National Security” in Kiel from 1981–98, in which renowned scientists, actors from governments and liberation movements as well as members of the military took part. Between 1982 and 1988 he was a member of the ZDF television council as a member of the Schleswig-Holstein CDU state government .

Between 1991 and 1993, together with his student and friend Karl-Heinz Naßmacher ( University of Oldenburg ) , Kaltefleiter organized a working group on the “reorganization of party financing ” in Germany. Since the Federal Constitutional Court had rejected the then existing form of the party law in 1992 after several scandals about party donations as incompatible with the Basic Law in essential parts, the treasurers of the CDU, SPD, CSU, B'90 / Die Grünen and the FDP had, under the leadership of Kaltefleiter and Naßmacher met in Bonn to pre-formulate a new party law that came into force in 1994.

Werner Kaltefleiter has regularly written columns for the daily newspaper Handelsblatt , for the weekly newspaper Welt am Sonntag and for the magazine Impulse .

Engagement as a politician

As a CDU member, Kaltefleiter has repeatedly questioned positions of the federal party. The controversy between him and parts of the CDU / CSU regarding the assessment of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is documented . In the 1970s, Kaltefleiter was attacked by the Strauss wing of the CSU - regularly in the CSU press organ Bayernkurier  . But in 1991 Kaltefleiter gave a lecture at the closed conference of the CSU in Wildbad Kreuth (now at the express request of the then CSU party chairman Theo Waigel ) on the development of the German party system and the position of the CSU in the party system after reunification.

In 1980, Kaltefleiter tried to get a seat in the Bundestag. As a CDU direct candidate in the Rendsburg-Eckernförde constituency , he tried to win the direct mandate with a concept based on US event election campaigns. However, he was subject to the former SPD member of the Bundestag and later Minister-President of Schleswig-Holstein, Heide Simonis . After 1980 he appeared as a member of the CDU regional committee for Schleswig-Holstein.

Honors

In 1984, Kaltefleiter was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class from the then Schleswig-Holstein Minister of Education and Culture, Peter Bendixen, for his commitment to promoting and maintaining university autonomy in Germany.

Works (selection)

• Function and responsibility in the European organizations. On the compatibility of parliamentary mandate and executive function , Athenäum Verlag, Frankfurt a. M./Köln 1964
• Functions of the mass media (together with Rudolf Wildenmann), Athenäum Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1965

• Consensus without power? An analysis of the federal election of September 19, 1965 . In: Ferdinand A. Hermens: Constitution and Constitutional Reality, Yearbook 1966 . West German publishing house, Cologne 1966
• Economy and politics in Germany. Business cycle as a determining factor of the party system , Westdeutscher Verlag, Cologne 1966 (2nd edition 1968)
• On equal opportunities for the parties . In: Ferdinand A. Hermens: Constitution and Constitutional Reality, Yearbook 1968 Part 2. Westdeutscher Verlag, Cologne 1968
• Economy and Politics in Germany (1966, 1968)
• The functions of the head of state in parliamentary democracy . West German publishing house, Cologne 1970
• The interplay of coalitions - analysis of the 1969 Bundestag election . (with Peter Arend, Paul Kevenhörster, Rüdiger Zülch) In: Ferdinand A. Hermens: Constitution and Constitutional Reality, Yearbook 1970 Part 1. Carl Heymanns, Cologne 1970
• Between Consensus and Crisis - Analysis of the 1972 Bundestag Election (1973)
• Secrecy and the Public in Foreign Policy (together with P. Krogh, 1974)
• Minorities in metropolitan areas - A German-American comparison (together with MG Eisenstadt, Bonn 1975)
• Prelude to change. An analysis of the 1976 Bundestag election (1977)
• World power without politics - The American system of government after the 1976 elections (together with Edward Keynes , Berlin 1979)
• Empirical election research. An introduction to theory and technology (together with P. Nißen, 1980)
• Parties in upheaval . Düsseldorf 1984
• Politics as supply and demand. Political. Decision-making processes in the United States (together with Edward Keynes and others), Kiel 19847
• Arms control, a wrong track? , Olzog, Munich 1984 (together with Ulrike Schumacher)

Editor (selection)

• Constitution and Constitutional Reality, yearbook . From 1972 together with Ferdinand A. Hermens, Duncker Humblot, Berlin 1972 ff.
• Conflicts, Options, Strategies In A Threatened World (with Ulrike Schumacher) Papers presented at the International Summer Course on National Security, 1981 ff., Writings of the Institute for Political Sciences at the University of Kiel
• Libertas Optima Rerum . Writings of the Institute for Security Policy at the University of Kiel, ESMittler, Herford 1984 ff.

literature

• Katia H. Backhaus: Two professors, two approaches. Political Science in Kiel on the Way to Pluralism (1971–1998). In: Wilhelm Knelangen , Tine Stein (ed.): Continuity and controversy. The history of political science at the University of Kiel . Klartext Verlag, Essen 2013, pp. 427–474, ISBN 978-3-8375-0763-8
• DIED Werner Kaltefleiter . In: Der Spiegel . No. 13 , 1998 ( online ).
• Edward Keynes (ed.): Willing processes and democracy. Werner Kaltefleiter in memory, Lang, Frankfurt a. M. 2000, ISBN 3-631-36442-3 .
• A detailed list of Werner Kaltefleiter's publications can be found in the commemorative publication by Robert L. Pfaltzgraff and William R. Van Cleave (eds.): Strategy and International Politics . Essays in Memory of Werner Kaltefleiter, Frankfurt: Lang, 2001, pp. 275-302, ISBN 0-8204-4837-0 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Werner Kaltefleiter in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Katia Backhaus: Two professors, two approaches. P. 452.
2. ↑ See Katia Backhaus: Two professors, two approaches. Pp. 466-470.
3. ↑ Kieler Nachrichten of November 19, 1982, quoted from Politics in Schleswig-Holstein in Spiegel der Presse No. 12, edited in 1985 by Bernd Bronstert, Institute for Political Science at the University of Kiel
4. ↑ This 1980 election campaign was marked by strong polarization - also within the CDU - triggered by the person of the CDU and CSU candidate for chancellor Franz Josef Strauss . As a result of this development, the CDU in Schleswig-Holstein was unable to win a single direct mandate in the 1980 federal election. See Peter Schindler, Data Handbook on the History of the German Bundestag 1980–1984 , Nomos, Baden-Baden 1986, p. 70.
5. ↑ His successor as a direct candidate in the Bundestag constituency of Rendsburg-Eckernförde for the 1983 Bundestag election was the former Schleswig-Holstein Prime Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg .