Willy Dehnkamp

Willy Dehnkamp

Willy Dehnkamp (born July 22, 1903 in Altona ; † November 12, 1985 in Bremen ) was a German politician ( SPD ). From 1951 to 1965 he was Bremen's Senator for Education and then until 1967 President of the Senate and Mayor of Bremen .

Profession and youth

Dehnkamp was born the son of a dock worker and initially wanted to be a seaman , but learned the metalworking trade . At the age of 16 he became a member of the German Metalworkers' Association and shortly afterwards a member of the SPD .

At the age of 23 Dehnkamp became chairman of the Socialist Youth of Greater Hamburg . In March 1928, the SPD district north-west sent him to the Lower Weser to support the Reichstag election campaign. There Dehnkamp was employed in July 1928 as the full-time sub-district secretary of the SPD for the sub-district Vegesack-Blumenthal-Osterholz ; he took over the leadership of the SPD in the district of Blumenthal . From 1929 to 1933 Dehnkamp was chairman of the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold in the local association Vegesack and the surrounding area . He tightened the organization considerably and increased its effectiveness from 1931 by setting up a "Schufo" and setting up night watch and patrol services.

In the local elections on March 12, 1933, the SPD defeated the National Socialists with him as the top candidate . Ten days after the election he was arrested and taken into “protective custody” , which he spent in the district court prison in Blumenthal , which had been converted into an SA camp .

After his release from prison on November 1, 1933, he began to build an underground organization of the Reich Banner . In March 1935 the Gestapo arrested him and he was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison by the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in Hamburg . In the trial against "Dehnkamp and others", 88 people were charged, including 30 from the Vegesack / Blumenthal area.

Dehnkamp was released at Christmas 1936 and drafted into military service in 1942. As a tank destroyer, he was wounded and was taken prisoner by the Soviets for three and a half years.

Bremen politician

In 1949 the Bremen Senate appointed him head of the local office in the Blumenthal district . On September 29, 1951, he became Senator for Education in Bremen. He held this office for fourteen years. During this time he was also a member of the Science Council , was the representative of the Federal Republic to the Supreme Council of the European Schools and head of the delegation at the Conference of European Ministers of Education in London. As President of the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs , he played a part in the creation of the Honnef Model , a forerunner of the Federal Training Assistance Act (BAföG). He promoted and supported all institutions of further education and dedicated himself to founding a university in Bremen. From November 26, 1963 to July 19, 1965 he was Mayor and Deputy President of the Senate. On July 20, 1965, Dehnkamp succeeded Wilhelm Kaisen as President of the Senate of the State of Bremen. After losing the absolute majority of the SPD in the state elections in 1967 , the Bremen SPD executive board suggested that he resign on October 5, which he carried out on October 10. He was replaced by Hans Koschnick . Dehnkamp then almost completely withdrew from politics, but held other offices.

Other offices and functions

Dehnkamp remained a member of the German Education Council until 1972 .

He was the first chairman of the Bremen Hanse-Kogge development association , which under his leadership moved from Bremen to Bremerhaven. This was one of the decisive prerequisites for the establishment of the German Maritime Museum in 1971. He became a member of the board of directors of the associated foundation.

He was also a member of the executive committee of the German UNESCO Commission and chairman of the Gerhard Marcks Foundation .

Honors

• He was awarded the Bremen Medal of Honor in Gold in 1973.
• After a state ceremony in Bremen's town hall on November 19, 1985, Dehnkamp was buried in the Blumenthal forest cemetery.
• The Bürgermeister-Dehnkamp-Strasse on the banks of the Weser in the Rönnebeck district of Blumenthal was named after him.

Fonts (selection)

• The socialist labor movement in Blumenthal-Vegesack (Bremen-Nord). Verlag Neue Gesellschaft: Bonn 1986, ISBN 978-3-87831-425-7

literature

• Ulrich Schröder: Rotes Band am Hammerand: History of the labor movement in the district of Osterholz from the beginnings to 1933. Donat Verlag , Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-938275-27-6 .
• Ulrich Schröder: From the inner workings of a republican military association. The Vegesack local association and the area around the Reichsbanner Black-Red-Gold 1924–1934 . In: Bremisches Jahrbuch , Vol. 92, 2013, pp. 217–270.

See also

• Senate Dehnkamp
• Senate Kaisen VII
• Senate Kaisen VI
• Senate Kaisen V
• Senate Kaisen IV
• List of Bremen Senators , List of Bremen Mayors
• List of education senators from Bremen

Web links

Commons : Willy Dehnkamp  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Willy Dehnkamp in the catalog of the German National Library
• CV Willy Dehnkamp
• Willy Dehnkamp in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Henning Scherf: "Willy Dehnkamp was an exemplary man". Ceremony in the town hall for the 100th birthday of the former mayor. Senate Press Office, July 22, 2003, accessed October 9, 2010 . 
2. ↑ On the death of Hans-Georg Bardewyk. (No longer available online.) Deutsches Schifffahrtsmuseum, January 16, 2004, p. 1 , formerly in the original ; Retrieved October 9, 2010 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.