Wilhelm Mellies

Wilhelm Mellies (born September 5, 1899 in Pivitsheide VL , † May 19, 1958 in Bonn ) was a German politician of the SPD .

job

Mellies attended the Detmold teachers' seminar from 1917 to 1922, interrupted from military service in the First World War and from being a prisoner of war, and then worked as a primary school teacher in Lage . When he joined the SPD, he also wrote articles in social democratic newspapers in which he commented on educational issues in particular. In 1933 he was dismissed from school for political reasons and worked as a grocer. During World War II he served a. a. as a soldier on the Eastern Front.

He had been married to the children's home manager Ella Stüben, who died in 1937, since 1933, and from 1953 onwards he was married to the SPD politician Anni Krahnstöver . The Wilhelm-Mellies-Strasse in Detmold and Hiddenhausen are named after Mellies .

Political party

Mellies joined the SPD in 1923. Together with Heinrich Drake , he rose to become one of the most important leaders in the SPD in Lippe. After 1945 he became district chairman of the SPD in East Westphalia. In 1952 he was elected deputy federal chairman of the SPD. In 1957/58 he belonged to Herbert Wehner , Fritz Erler , Carlo Schmid , Erich Ollenhauer , Alfred Nau and Waldemar von Knoeringen of the Seven Commission , which implemented a structural reform of the party leadership at the 1958 Stuttgart Federal Party Congress of the SPD. In particular, this strengthened the influence of the base delegates on the election of the party leadership, but the federal executive committee was strengthened in relation to the party congress in matters of content.

MP

Mellies was a member of the Lippe state parliament from 1925 to 1933 , and from 1929 onwards he was its president.

In 1946/47 Mellies was a member of the appointed Lippe Landtag and in 1947 moved into the 2nd appointed Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia after the state of Lippe was dissolved . In 1948/49 he became a member of the Economic Council of the Bizone . He was a member of the German Bundestag from its first election in 1949 until his death. There he was deputy from 1949 to 1953. Chairman of the Berlin Committee. On October 7, 1952 he was appointed deputy. SPD parliamentary group chairman elected (until 1957) after he had previously been the “political secretary” (= parliamentary manager) of his parliamentary group. Mellies was elected directly in the Lemgo constituency in 1949, 1953 and 1957 .

Public offices

In 1945 Mellies was appointed full-time district administrator for the Detmold district . Until 1953 he was President of the German Congregational Assembly .

literature

• Holger Feldmann-Marth:  Mellies, Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , p. 22 ( digitized version ).
• Annegret Tegtmeier-Breit: “... one cannot take away our pride and now especially our belief that we are fighters for the future. ... ". A biographical approach to the teacher and politician Wilhelm Mellies . In: War - Revolution - Republic: Detmold 1914 - 1933. Documentation of an urban history project. Aisthesis-Verlag, Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-89528-606-3 , pp. 509-525.
• Biographical Lexicon of Socialism Volume I Verlag JHW Dietz Nachf. GmbH Hannover pp. 221–222

Web links

• Wilhelm Mellies at the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia