Willi van Ooyen

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Willi van Ooyen (2013)

Willi van Ooyen (born February 23, 1947 in Weeze ) is an activist of the peace and social forum movement, was a functionary of the German Peace Union from 1976 and was a member of the Left Party in the Hessian state parliament from 2008 to 2017 .

Life

Van Ooyen was the oldest of seven children and attended elementary school from 1953 to 1962. 1962 to 1965 he did an apprenticeship as an electrician at the Federal Railroad . In addition to his job, he passed the Abitur in 1969. In 1972 he moved to Frankfurt am Main to start a family. There he began studying history and pedagogy at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University and graduated with honors on the subject of “Hessian framework guidelines” as a qualified pedagogue .

From 1992 to 1996 he was managing director of Werkstatt Frankfurt e. V. active. From 1997 to 2008 he worked as a department head, authorized signatory and educational director of Praunheimer Werkstätten gGmbH in Frankfurt am Main. There he worked on planning concepts for the situation of disabled people in the care area.

He is married and has two grown sons.

Political career

When he started his apprenticeship, he joined the GdED trade union , and later the ÖTV . The ÖTV was in 2001 in the Ver.di on. He was active in the apprenticeship movement and since 1966 took part in the Easter marches of the peace movement. In 1969 he refused military service ; During his civil service he was spokesman for the "Federal Center for Self-Organization of Civil Service Doers" in Düsseldorf and was involved in the first nationwide strikes of those doing civil service in April 1971. He was a member of the federal board of the Association of Conscientious Objectors and, after the merger (1974), honorary state director of the DFG -VK Hessen. He was responsible for various actions on the subject of the Vietnam War , the military coup in Chile , against the " radical decree " and conducted Franco-German seminars on social and peace topics .

From 1976 he was the Hessian state manager and from 1984 full-time one of three federal managers of the German Peace Union , an organization largely financed by the GDR, until it went down after the collapse of the GDR for lack of money.

Since 1980 he has been involved in reviving the tradition of the Easter marches . He is one of the initiators of the “ Krefeld Appeal ”, was a co-organizer of the great peace campaigns of the 1980s and the events “ Artists for Peace ”, the conferences against the “Radical Decree”, but kept his distance from the system-critical GDR peace movement .

He was active on a voluntary basis in the “Social Policy Initiative” (“Poverty Report for the City of Frankfurt am Main”) and was a founding member and board member of the “Denkfabrik e. V. "(cooperation between university, technical college and trade union), spokesman for the Federal Peace Council Committee, spokesman for the Easter March office and chairman of the" Friedens- und Zukunftswerkstatt e. V. "; he participated in the "Erfurt Declaration".

Another focus of the work for NGOs is the social forum movement . Willi van Ooyen is the head of the nationwide German social forums and the Hessian social forum in Wiesbaden. These initiatives are networked with the World Social Forum and the European social forums .

In September 2007 he was elected the top candidate of the party Die Linke for the state election in Hesse in 2008 . His nomination was preceded by the failed attempt to choose Dieter Hooge as the top candidate of the left. Former DKP member Pit Metz was elected instead. Pit Metz resigned from this candidacy shortly afterwards and Willi van Ooyen became the new list leader. He did not initially belong to the party, but joined it in November 2008. With the entry of the party into the Hessian state parliament , van Ooyen won a mandate alongside five other candidates on his list. The parliamentary group elected him on February 11, 2008 as their group chairman.

As his goals in the Hessian state politics, he named: Building a closer connection to extra-parliamentary initiatives, more money for education, financed from a higher top tax rate, and more promotion of public employment. He also criticizes the protection of the constitution ; this only serves as an instrument of repression.

In 2009 and 2013 he was re-elected to the state parliament. While he was running in the 2008 and 2009 state elections in the Main-Taunus II constituency , he ran in the Main-Taunus I constituency in 2013 . However, he was always elected via the state list of his party.

On April 15, 2017, he resigned from his state parliament mandate.

criticism

Van Ooyen was sharply criticized in 2008 and 2010 for his work in the German Peace Union, which was supported by the GDR annually with millions. Van Ooyen said that he had pushed the "fundraising problems" away; that was probably "naive". On March 6, 2008, von Ooyen told the newspaper Die Welt in an interview: “I was not responsible for the flow of money. We collected everywhere and took everything that was offered to us. Nobody ever came to me with money from the GDR or Moscow. ”In November 1989, he told the taz that he had been informed in detail about the flow of money from the GDR. The taz summarized van Ooyen's remarks: “German trading companies in East-West business invested - if necessary or gladly, part of their profits in the local struggle for socialism. Those who wanted to earn money from Krim sparkling wine or Gorbachev vodka in the FRG had to pay out part of the return to DFU or DKP according to the contract. Van Ooyen uses it to reveal what has so far been viewed in DFU and DKP circles as defamation of stubborn anti-communists. "

In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on October 9, 2008, the historian Hubertus Knabe accused van Ooyen of having taken on a position after 1976 that "was called an agent of influence during the Cold War". According to the Birthler authority, Van Ooyen was not an employee of the Ministry of State Security .

Works

  • Willi van Ooyen: Aspects of the political and historical developments of the peace movement of the Federal Republic of Germany . In: Michael Berndt, Ingrid El Masry (Ed.): Conflict, Development, Peace. Emancipatory perspectives in a torn world . Verlag Winfried Jenior, Kassel 2003 (Kassel Writings on Peace Policy, Vol. 8), ISBN 3-934377-83-1 ( online )

Web links

Commons : Willi van Ooyen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Lutz, Uwe Müller: How the Stasi protected Willi van Ooyen ; in: Die Welt , October 13, 2008
  2. ^ Christoph Schäfer: Willi van Ooyen: "Roland Koch is xenophobic" ; Interview with van Ooyen in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on January 15, 2008
  3. ↑ Christean Wagner: "Van Ooyen's statements about the DKP cooperation are unbearable". The left stands in the ideologically motivated SED tradition ( memento from July 22, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ); Press release of the Hessian CDU parliamentary group from February 18, 2008.
    Axel Wintermeyer: “Left is a wolf in sheep's clothing!” - Falsification of history must be stopped ( Memento from August 2, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ); Press release from the Hessian CDU parliamentary group on September 25, 2008.
    Axel Wintermeyer: “Leftists are lobbyists of an outmoded system” ( Memento from March 11, 2016 in the Internet Archive ); Press release of the Hessian CDU parliamentary group from March 4, 2010.
  4. ↑ Stasi historian Knabe again raises allegations against van Ooyen Deutschlandfunk, October 21, 2008
  5. ↑ Gisela Kirschstein: Willi van Ooyen: “The cook has to go, there is no wobbling with us” ; Interview with van Ooyen in Die Welt , March 6, 2008
  6. ↑ Unemployed professional revolutionaries: DKP is broke . In: taz Bremen No. 2974, November 29, 1989, page 17
  7. ^ Hubertus Knabe: Left politician Willi van Ooyen: Honecker's millions for a Trojan horse ; Article on faz.net from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, issue of October 9, 2008
  8. ↑ Thomas Holl: CDU: Ooyen has to express himself ; Article on faz.net from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from October 9, 2008
  9. ^ Birthler authority: Van Ooyen not a Stasi employee ; AP report in Focus from October 10, 2008.
    Thomas Holl: Left politician Ooyen: “I am unencumbered” ; Article on faz.net from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, issue of October 10, 2008
personal data
SURNAME Ooyen, Willi van
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (Die Linke), MdL
DATE OF BIRTH February 23, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Weeze