Wilhelm Dröscher

This article describes the social democratic politician Wilhelm Dröscher (1920–1977), the statistician of the same name and German-conservative member of the Reichstag (1860–1939) can be found under Wilhelm Dröscher (statistician) .

Wilhelm Dröscher (left) with Herbert Wehner in Dortmund in 1976

Wilhelm Dröscher (born October 7, 1920 in Kirn ; † November 18, 1977 in Hamburg ) was a German politician ( SPD ). At the age of 57 he died during the SPD party conference in Hamburg in 1977.

family

Dröscher was born in the Nahe wine-growing region in what would later be the state of Rhineland-Palatinate . His father Wilhelm Dröscher senior, born in Kirn, was a Protestant denomination, his mother Frieda nee. Suchonitzki, born in 1898, was Jewish . The parents married in 1919 in Suwałki near Białystok , which is now the capital of the northeastern Polish Podlaskie Voivodeship . There, as an occupying soldier, his father ran a sawmill during and after the end of the First World War . In August 1919 he returned to Germany and brought his wife with him. In the time of National Socialism , the four children of the family were considered " half-Jews "; the mother survived the Holocaust because she was married to a non-Jew.

Like his father, Dröscher jun. evangelical. He had six children with his wife Lydia. His son Peter Wilhelm Dröscher (* 1946) was a member of the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament from 1996 to 2014, his daughter Dorothee Giani-Dröscher (1947-2010) held various functions within the party and was married to Paul Leo Giani , who Son Michael Dröscher (* 1949) is Professor of Chemistry and was Chairman of the German Bunsen Society in 2005/06 and President of the Society of German Chemists in 2010/11 .

Education, military service and job

After attending primary school, Dröscher did a commercial apprenticeship and worked as an employee at the Kirner Hartsteinwerke (today Südwestdeutsche Hartsteinwerke ) until the beginning of the Second World War .

Because of his Jewish mother, Dröscher was initially excluded from leadership roles in the German Wehrmacht , in which he had served since 1939. When Germany's military defeat became apparent in 1943, he was promoted to officer with a special permit from Adolf Hitler . As a soldier, he was wounded several times and was taken prisoner of war . He was awarded the Iron Cross I and II and the German Cross in Gold. His last rank was first lieutenant .

From 1945 to 1948 he worked in a sawmill . From 1953 to 1957 he trained as an administrative specialist at the Rhineland-Palatinate Administration Academy.

politics

Political party

Dröscher's political career began in 1946 when he joined the KPD . In 1949 he separated from this party and joined the SPD. In 1970 he took over the chairmanship of the Rhineland-Palatinate SPD and held the office until his death. In 1973 he was elected to the party executive committee and presidium of the Federal SPD and became chairman of the business committee of the party executive committee. In 1974 the Federation of Social Democratic Parties of the European Community elected him its President. From 1975 he held the office of federal treasurer in the SPD .

MP

From 1946 to 1948 Dröscher sat on the city ​​council of Kirn for the KPD .

After joining the SPD, Dröscher was a member of the state parliament in Rhineland-Palatinate from 1955 to 1957 and a member of the German Bundestag from 1957 to October 12, 1971 . From December 9, 1965 to October 12, 1971, he was also a member of the European Parliament . From 1971 until his death he was again a member of the state parliament and, as parliamentary group leader of his party, was an opposition leader until December 31, 1975 . In this function he was also the top candidate in the state elections in 1971 and 1975 , but both times lost to the incumbent Helmut Kohl .

Public offices

In 1949 Dröscher became mayor of Kirn-Land and held this office until 1967.

Honors

In memory of Dröscher, who was considered the "good person of Kirn" during his lifetime, the SPD founded the Wilhelm Dröscher Foundation just a week after his death . Widow Lydia Dröscher held the chair for ten years, then her son-in-law Paul Leo Giani took over the office. Son Michael Dröscher has been chairman since 2010.

In 1982 the SPD donated the Wilhelm Dröscher Prize , which is awarded at the federal party congress and is accompanied by an exhibition. The prize is endowed with € 15,000.

The SPD state association Rhineland-Palatinate awards the Wilhelm Dröscher plaque .

After Dröscher u. a. named:

• in Kirn the Wilhelm-Dröscher-Haus , the former district court, in which since 1977 a. a. the old day care center of the Arbeiterwohlfahrt and since 1998 the care association of the AWO are housed
• in Kirn the Wilhelm-Dröscher-Schule , a special school for the learning disabled (1994)
• in Birkenfeld , the Wilhelm-Dröscher Street (1987 in the presence of Droeschers widow)

literature

• Walter Henkels : 99 Bonn heads , reviewed and supplemented edition, Fischer-Bücherei, Frankfurt am Main 1965, p. 76f.
• Wilhelm Dröscher , in Internationales Biographisches Archiv 52/1977 from December 19, 1977, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Dröscher  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Wilhelm Dröscher in the catalog of the German National Library
• Wilhelm Dröscher Foundation
• Wilhelm Dröscher Prize

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Peter Wilhelm Dröscher MdL: Personal email to dialect poet . Kirn June 8, 2012 (forwarded to chronicler 47 ).
2. ^ Peter Wilhelm Dröscher MdL: Personal email to dialect poet . Kirn June 14, 2012 (forwarded to chronicler 47).
3. ↑ Saskia Free Life, SPD party executive, party life department: Telephone information to dialect poet . Berlin June 14, 2012 (forwarded to chronicler 47).