Willibald Gänger

Willibald Gänger (born December 16, 1903 in Wörth am Rhein , † December 10, 1994 in Bad Bergzabern ) was a German politician ( SPD ).

Life

After graduating from primary school, Gänger completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith in Karlsruhe . He had been a member of the labor movement since 1918 and attended the socialist folk high school at Tinz Castle . He then went on a hike that took him to the Soviet Union and the Middle East from 1926 to 1931 and during which he attended a university in Moscow . Back in Germany I attended the trade union school in Dürrenberg .

After the National Socialists came to power , Gänger became active in the resistance and in 1933 took over the management of an illegal group in Karlsruhe made up of members who had previously belonged to the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold and the SPD. He also acted as editor of the newspaper Gegen den Strom, which was banned by the National Socialists . He performed his official work as a locksmith, fitter and travel agent. From 1940 Gänger took part in the Second World War as a soldier . He served on the Eastern Front , among other things, was used as an interpreter and was taken prisoner as a sergeant.

After his release from captivity in 1946, Gänger initially worked in the labor administration. From 1952 he ran a shoe shop in Bergzabern.

Meanwhile, Gänger had joined the SPD. He was elected chairman of the SPD district association Bergzabern and was a board member of the SPD district of Palatinate, for which he also worked as party secretary. From 1948 he was a member of the Bergzabern district council . From 1946 to 1947 he was a member of the Consultative State Assembly , which had been commissioned by the Allies to draft the state constitution for Rhineland-Palatinate . In the first state election in May 1947 , he was elected as a member of the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament, to which he belonged without interruption until the end of the fifth legislative period in 1967. During his parliamentary work he was, among other things, a member of the Broadcasting Council of Südwestfunk (SWF).

In his private life, Gänger was an art collector. From 1951 to 1958 he was managing director of the Palatinate Secession and board member of the Association of Palatinate Art Friends.

Willibald Gänger was married to Luise Hahn for the second time in 1934 and had a daughter.

Honors

• 1965: Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

literature

• President of the Landtag Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Gänger, Willibald. In: 60 years of parliament in Rhineland-Palatinate. (= Series of publications of the Rhineland-Palatinate State Parliament, issue 33), Mainz 2007. P. 75. ( PDF; 1.0 MB )
• Herrmann AL Degener , Walter Habel (Ed.): Who is who? The German who's who. Volume 14, Arani, Berlin 1962. p. 398.