Werner Lenz (politician)

Werner Franz Georg Lenz (born December 27, 1927 in Osnabrück ; † October 24, 2004 in Bremerhaven ) was a German communist and social democrat. From 1995 he got involved in the electoral community work for Bremen and Bremerhaven . He was Lord Mayor of Bremerhaven and Senator in Bremen. 1961–1965 he sat in the German Bundestag.

Life

Lenz grew up in poor conditions. His father was a steel former and a member of a KPD resistance group during the Nazi era . He attended secondary school. As a 17-year-old Wehrmacht soldier, Lenz deserted in autumn 1944. He lived underground until the end of the war. In the post-war period in Germany he trained as a carpenter . At the same time he wrote as a freelancer for newspapers. Lenz was married to Hildegard Lenz, born in May 1979, in his second marriage . Steffens married Piesker married. From the first marriage with Hildegard "Gitta" Lenz geb. Kobr he had a son (1953-1996).

politics

Like his father, he became a member of the KPD after the war. Since 1950 he was a member of the SPD. In 1953 he became union secretary in Bremerhaven. In 1955 he became a member of the city ​​council and in 1958 chairman of the SPD parliamentary group.
After the Bundestag election in 1961 , he was a member of the German Bundestag for the full legislative period . In parliament he represented the Bundestag constituency Bremen II - Bremerhaven . The city of Bremerhaven was now the focus of his political commitment. From 1965 to 1978 he was parliamentary group leader in the city council. He was also the managing director of the Neue Heimat in Bremerhaven.

From October 1, 1978 to November 10, 1983, Lenz was Lord Mayor of Bremerhaven as the successor to Bodo Selge (SPD). After his appointment to the Senate of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, Lord Mayor Karl Willms (SPD) followed him in office. From 1983 to 1987 he also helped shape the development of the state of Bremen in Senate Koschnick V and Senate Wedemeier I as Senator for Economics and Foreign Trade. As a senator he succeeded Karl Willms; he was followed in 1987 by Uwe Beckmeyer (SPD), who also comes from Bremerhaven. He was then an honorary city councilor for economics in Bremerhaven.

At the beginning of the 1990s he had friction with the SPD. So he left the party in 1995 and together with others founded the bourgeois voter association Work for Bremen and Bremerhaven (AfB) on the right of the SPD . This voter community was only active in the state of Bremen and inflicted heavy losses on the SPD in the 1995 state elections because it won 10.7% of the vote straight away. The SPD then formed a grand coalition with the CDU under Mayor Henning Scherf (SPD) in 1995 , which lasted until 2007.

From 1995 to 1999 Lenz was a member of the Bremen Parliament . He was represented on the Committee for Port Affairs and in the Deputations for the Fishing Port and the Deputations for Economy and Ports.
In 2002 this electoral community dissolved again. Lenz often said that, despite his leading role in the AfB, he still felt like a social democrat.

He was also represented on the administrative board of Stadt-Sparkasse Bremerhaven , on the supervisory board of the Fischereihafen-Betriebs- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft in Bremerhaven and temporarily chaired the administrative board of Radio Bremen .

Werner Lenz's autobiography, which he had not been able to complete, appeared posthumously in 2006. Apart from fragmentary chapters about the 1970s, it ends in the 1950s.

criticism

House of Crafts

His numerous offices gave him a wealth of power in Bremerhaven, which he also used. According to the German Association of Journalists (DJV), he abused his position for undue influence. In a letter to Radio Bremen, Lenz complained about the station's reporting on Bremerhaven's waste incineration plant . He threatened that the magistrate would object to planned fee increases if criticism from the media continued. During his time, many buildings in Bremerhaven that had survived the war were demolished. Many unsightly exposed aggregate concrete buildings were built in Leherheide and Bürgerpark Süd. This quarter between the federal highway 27 , the Schiffdorfer Chaussee , the Walter-Delius-Straße and the Bürgerpark was built around 1975; two skyscrapers were demolished around 2010. Under the wrecking ball came in the Long Street Lehes oldest houses that had survived the fire of 1825th The OSC Bremerhaven received a competition pool. For the Columbus Center Bremerhaven , some buildings from the 1920s that had survived the air raids on Wesermünde were demolished in the middle , such as the old Karstadt department store and building at the old port . A hall for the city council was built for a lot of money. The Columbus Center made the Great Church small and was called "Lenz memorial" by the Americans. Those who opposed this building policy disappeared into political insignificance. In the meantime, most of the new buildings have been torn down, but unfortunately the House of Crafts on Elbinger Platz has not yet.

See also

• List of city leaders in Bremerhaven
• List of Bremen Senators
• List of economic senators from Bremen
• List of members of the German Bundestag (4th electoral term)

literature

• Werner Lenz: There are no straight paths . Wirtschaftsverlag NW, Bremerhaven 2006, ISBN 3-86509-461-9 (autobiography).

Web links

• Speech by Mayor Jörg Schulz on the death of Werner Lenz

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Werner Lenz: There are no straight paths . S. 194 .
2. ↑ Werner Lenz: There are no straight paths . S. 509-513 .
3. ↑ Weser-Kurier of July 1, 1982, p. 17: DJV protest against "political coercion"
4. ↑ Hendrik Werner: Eight Deadly Sins in Bremerhaven (Weser-Kurier June 8, 2015)