Wilhelm Hoegner

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Wilhelm Hoegner, 1930
Hoegner (2nd from left) in June 1947 at the Munich Prime Minister's Conference
Hoegner and Theodor Blank attending an officers' course on May 15, 1956

Wilhelm Hoegner (born September 23, 1887 in Munich ; † March 5, 1980 ibid ) was a German lawyer , judge , university professor and politician ( SPD ). From 1945 to 1946 and 1954 to 1957 he was Bavarian Prime Minister , the only Prime Minister of Bavaria after the Second World War who was not a member of the CSU . At the time of his exile in Switzerland, he was drafting a constitution that was essentially incorporated into the current constitution of the Free State of Bavaria ; He is therefore considered the "father of the Bavarian constitution".

Early years

Wilhelm Hoegner was the seventh of 13 children of the railway official Michael Georg Hoegner from Graefensteinberg near Gunzenhausen and his wife Therese, née Engelhardt. After working in Munich and Aufkirchen near Erding , the family finally settled in Perach near Altötting . From 1898 Hoegner attended the humanistic grammar school in Burghausen . From 1901 to 1907 he attended the Ludwigsgymnasium in Munich . From 1907 to 1911 he studied law in Berlin , Munich and Erlangen . In 1911 he was with the work "The parole after preliminary draft (compared to the conditional pardon)" to Dr. jur. PhD. In 1914 he enlisted in the First World War as a volunteer , but was rejected for health reasons.

He was baptized a Catholic but left the Church in 1918. On October 3, 1918, he married the bank clerk Anna Woock (born on October 25, 1892 in Munich). The marriage had two children. From 1917 to 1918 he worked as an assessor and from May 15, 1918 to February 1, 1920 as a lawyer in Munich, after receiving his admission to the bar on May 14. From February 2, 1920 to February 29, 1920 he worked as a certified legal intern and then until April 20, 1920 as a permanent legal assistant at the Munich I Public Prosecutor's Office. On May 1, 1920 he was there III. Appointed public prosecutor, which he remained until November 30, 1925. From December 1, 1925 to March 31, 1929 he worked as a local judge at the Munich District Court . As early as 1920/21 and 1923 he had unsuccessfully applied for a position as a magistrate.

On March 1, 1929, he returned to the Munich I Public Prosecutor's Office as the second public prosecutor, which he remained until December 31, 1932. On January 1, 1933, he was appointed district judge at the Munich I district court . On May 1, 1933, he was dismissed from the Bavarian civil service because of his political activities for the SPD on the basis of Section 4 of the National Socialist Law on the “Restoration of the Professional Civil Service”.

In 1919 he joined the SPD. From 1924 to 1930 he was a member of the state parliament and from 1930 to 1933 a member of the Reichstag . During the Weimar Republic, Hoegner belonged to the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold organization for the protection of the republic . In the Bavarian state parliament, Hoegner was a co-reporter in the committee of inquiry into the Hitler-Ludendorff putsch .

Exile and return

On May 1, 1933, Hoegner was dismissed from civil service and emigrated to Tyrol in July , where he worked as a secretary for the Austrian Social Democratic Workers' Party in Innsbruck . In February 1934, at the beginning of the Austrian Civil War , Wilhelm Hoegner went into exile in Switzerland .

After the escape, he was banned from any political, legal or journalistic activity. So he was left with literature as the only means of dealing with the Third Reich. Under the pseudonym "Urs Liechti" he published the novel Wodans Wiederkunft in Zurich in 1936 . Funny travelogue from a sad time that grimly satirically settled with Hitler's Germany. A narrator tells of harrowing experiences he witnesses a people's court proceedings against Charlemagne must be because leaders insult responsible because he was driving his car through the dust on the recently Adolf Hitler was paced, and he experienced a Walpurgisnacht with Julius Streicher on the Franconian Hesselberg . The novel was the only work that Hoegner published under this pseudonym.

In 1939/40 he drafted an imperial constitution together with Hans Nawiasky , Otto Braun and Joseph Wirth , between 1943 and spring 1945 he wrote a proposal for the reorganization of Germany , and he also formulated legal texts for the establishment of a Bavarian state within the framework of a federal system.

At the beginning of June 1945 he returned to Germany and managed the reconstruction of the justice administration on behalf of the Bavarian Prime Minister Fritz Schäffer . In September he became President of the Senate of the Munich Higher Regional Court , but only held this office for a very short time.

Political career

First Hoegner government

On September 28, 1945, the American occupation authorities appointed Hoegner to succeed Fritz Schäffers as Bavarian Prime Minister. On October 18, he also took over the office of Attorney General and became a member of the State Council of the American Occupation Area .

On May 13, 1946, Hoegner was elected chairman of the Bavarian SPD . On October 16, 1946, he was present as one of two German representatives at the execution of those sentenced to death at the Nuremberg Trials .

Bavarian Constitution

The occupation authorities commissioned Hoegner to prepare the Bavarian constitution. From March to June 1946 he was chairman of the preparatory constitutional committee, from June to November a member of the state constituent assembly and its constitutional committee. The institutionalization of referendums and referendums , the equality of denominational schools and community schools as well as the strong anchoring of community self-administration go back to him. The mushroom paragraph Article 141 goes back to him , in which free access to nature is guaranteed. Hoegner is thus considered the father of the constitution of the Free State of Bavaria .

Minister of Justice

In the first state elections on December 1, 1946 , the CSU won and Hans Ehard formed a cabinet made up of the CSU, SPD and WAV . Hoegner remained Justice Minister in the Ehard I cabinet and became Deputy Prime Minister. In 1946 he became honorary professor for constitutional law at the law faculty of the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich .

The SPD parliamentary group in 1947 terminated the coalition with the CSU. Hoegner turned against this decision and resigned as minister and party chairman. As a delegate of the Bavarian State Parliament, Hoegner was a member of the first Federal Assembly , which elected Theodor Heuss as the first German Federal President in 1949 . Hoegner was also a member of the Federal Assembly from 1959 and 1969 .

Outside the government

Because of his stance on the coalition question and because he took an opinion that deviated from the party line on the question of approving the Basic Law , there were violent disputes between him and the party leadership until 1949. After his resignation as minister, Hoegner became President of the Senate at the Munich Higher Regional Court in 1947. From 1948 to 1950 he was attorney general at the Bavarian Supreme Court .

Hoegner was a member of the state parliament from December 1946 and remained so until November 22, 1970. His constituency was initially the constituency Burghausen-Altötting , then electoral district Munich XI-West .

Together with Waldemar von Knoeringen , he built up the Georg-von-Vollmar-Schule (from 1968: Georg-von-Vollmar-Akademie ) from 1948 , the aim of which is to enable people to actively support themselves through political education and training to use social democracy in order to counteract National Socialist ideas.

Interior minister

In the state elections in 1950 , the SPD almost won the highest share of the vote with 28 percent, but still only entered the state parliament as the second largest party. Hoegner joined the third cabinet of Hans Ehard, formed from the CSU and SPD , as interior minister and deputy prime minister .

Second Hoegner government

In the state elections of November 28, 1954 , the SPD was able to grow slightly, but was overtaken by the CSU, which was able to increase by 10.6 percentage points to 38.0 percent. Since a continuation of the previous grand coalition failed due to the attitude of the CSU, the SPD formed a coalition of four with the Bavarian party , the BHE and the FDP with Hoegner as prime minister. The CSU was the only opposition party.

Hoegner's government tried, among other things, to reform elementary school teacher training. On January 31, 1956, he presented his “ Palatinate Manifesto ” to the Bavarian State Parliament , which made extensive commitments to the Palatinate (region) in the event of their return to Bavaria, but the corresponding referendum of April 1956 did not achieve the necessary quorum . However, during his term of office in 1956, the previously independent district of Lindau was incorporated into the Free State of Bavaria.

After the federal election in 1957, with the triumphant victory of the Union parties and a 57.2 percent share of the vote for the CSU in Bavaria, his coalition of four broke up. Encouraged by the CSU, the BHE left the coalition on October 7th. On the same day at 9 p.m. the ministers and state secretaries of the Bavarian party also announced their resignation, and Hoegner had to resign on October 8th. Hanns Seidel from the CSU became his successor.

After the resignation

From 1958 to 1962, Hoegner led the SPD parliamentary group and was then deputy president of the Bavarian parliament until he left the parliament in 1970. In September 1961 Wilhelm Hoegner was elected to the German Bundestag. But at the end of the year he renounced his mandate; The successor was Georg Kahn-Ackermann . In 1971 Hoegner became honorary chairman of the Bavarian SPD.

Hoegner died on March 5, 1980 in Munich. He was buried in the cemetery at Perlacher Forst in grave no. 7-A-56.

tomb

Honors (excerpt)

Publications

  • The national socialist fraud. Speech by Dr. W. Hoegner in the Reichstag on October 18, 1930 . JHW Dietz, Berlin 1930. (2nd edition 1931)
  • The woman in the Third Reich . JHW Dietz, Berlin 1931.
  • Fascism and the intellectuals. Fall of the German spirit . Graphia publishing house, Karlsbad 1934 under the pseudonym "District Court Director"
  • Wodan's return. Funny travelogue from a sad time (novel, 1936) under the pseudonym "Urs Liechti"
  • Politics and Morals (1937)
  • The betrayed republic. History of the German Counter-Revolution (1958)
  • The difficult outsider. Memories of a Member of Parliament, Emigrant and Prime Minister (1959)
  • Escape from Hitler. Memories of the Surrender of the First German Republic in 1933 (1977)

literature

  • Peter Kritzer: Wilhelm Hoegner. Political biography of a Bavarian social democrat. Süddeutscher Verlag, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-7991-5874-X .
  • Hildegard Kronawitter : Wilhelm Hoegner. In: Insights and Perspectives. Bavarian magazine for politics and history. . No. 2, 2005, pp 34-57 ( archive overview ; PDF, 266 kB ).
  • Gerhard A. Ritter : Wilhelm Hoegner (1887–1980). In: Gerhard A. Ritter: Workers, workers' movement and social ideas in Germany. CH Beck, Munich 1996, pp. 292-311, ISBN 3-406-40553-3 .
  • Hermann Rumschöttel : Wilhelm Hoegner. In: Katharina Weigand (ed.): Great figures of Bavarian history. Herbert Utz Verlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-8316-0949-9 .
  • Martin Schumacher (Hrsg.): MdR The Reichstag members of the Weimar Republic in the time of National Socialism. Political persecution, emigration and expatriation, 1933–1945. A biographical documentation . 3rd, considerably expanded and revised edition. Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5183-1 .
  • Rolf Tauscher: Literary satire of exile against National Socialism and Hitler Germany. From FG Alexan to Paul Westheim. Kovac, Hamburg 1992, to: Wodan's return. Pp. 125-132, ISBN 3-86064-062-3 .

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e Hoegner, Dr. Wilhelm . House of Bavarian History. Retrieved February 23, 2017.
  2. a b c d e f g h i j k l Dr. Wilhelm Hoegner curriculum vitae . Bavarian State Government. Retrieved February 23, 2017.
  3. ^ Peter Kritzer: Wilhelm Hoegner. Munich 1979, p. 28.
  4. Urs Liechti . Charles Linsmayer. Retrieved February 23, 2017.
  5. Democracy and Mushrooms . Bavarian radio. December 8, 2011. Accessed February 23, 2017.
  6. List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.59 MB)
  7. Helga Pfoertner: Living with history. Vol. 1, Literareron, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-89675-859-4 , p. 200 ( PDF; 1.1 MB ( Memento from April 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive ))