Wolfgang Mischnick

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Wolfgang Mischnick
Wolfgang Mischnick, 1990

Friedrich Adolf Wolfgang Mischnick (born September 29, 1921 in Dresden ; † October 6, 2002 in Bad Soden am Taunus ) was a German politician ( FDP ). From 1961 to 1963 he was Federal Minister for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims and from 1968 to 1991 Chairman of the FDP parliamentary group, as such he was opposition leader from 1968 to 1969.

Life and work

After graduating from the Luisenstift grammar school in Radebeul , Mischnick took part in the Second World War as a soldier from 1939 to 1945, most recently in the rank of lieutenant of the infantry . As a former officer of the Wehrmacht , the Soviet occupation forces prohibited him the desired engineering degree . In 1948 he was banned from writing and speaking . Thereupon - and in order to avoid the threat of arrest by the NKVD - he fled first to Berlin and a little later to Frankfurt am Main . From 1953 to 1957 he was Vice President of the Association Assembly of the State Welfare Association of Hesse. Between 1957 and 1961 he also held the office of the Hessian state chairman in the General Association of Soviet Zone Refugees. He was also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Deutsche Sporthilfe Foundation .

Wolfgang Mischnick died at the age of 81 and was buried in the old cemetery in Kronberg im Taunus . He was married twice and had three children.

Political party

After the end of the war, Mischnick was one of the founders of the LDP in Dresden . He became LDP youth officer for Saxony and from 1946 was a member of the LDP's executive board for the Soviet zone of occupation . He turned against the political monopoly claim of the Free German Youth ( FDJ ) and the appropriation of children in the pioneer organization Ernst Thälmann . In 1947 he was elected deputy state chairman of the LDP Saxony. However, the election was canceled by the Soviet occupying forces.

After fleeing to West Germany, Mischnick became a member of the FDP in Hesse . From 1954 to 1957 he was federal chairman of the FDP youth organization, the German Young Democrats . Between 1954 and 1991 he was also a member of the FDP federal executive committee , from 1964 to 1988 as deputy federal chairman. In addition, he was chairman of the FDP district association in Frankfurt am Main in the 1950s.

From 1954 to 1967 Mischnick was also deputy state chairman of the FDP in Hesse , from 1967 to 1977 he then served as its state chairman. On 30./31. In May 1973, Mischnick traveled with Herbert Wehner ( SPD ) to a secret meeting with the Chairman of the State Council Erich Honecker in the GDR . In the Hubertusstock hunting lodge in Schorfheide , humanitarian issues relating to German-German relations were discussed.

From 1987 to 1995, Mischnick was chairman of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, which is close to the FDP . He was temporarily a member of the board of trustees of the Wolf-Erich-Kellner Memorial Foundation . From 1987 to 1995 he was co-editor of the magazine liberal published by the foundation .

The extensive estate of Mischnick is in the archive of liberalism of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in Gummersbach .

MP

Wolfgang Mischnick, 1976
Mischnick, 1982

In 1946, Mischnick was elected to the Dresden city council. From 1954 to 1957 he was a member of the Hessian state parliament . Here he acted as parliamentary managing director of the FDP state parliamentary group . From 1956 to 1961 and from 1964 to 1972 he was a member of the city council of Frankfurt am Main . Between 1956 and 1961 and 1964 and 1968 he held the office of parliamentary group chairman.

From 1957 to 1994 Wolfgang Mischnick was a member of the German Bundestag . From 1959 to 1961 he was parliamentary manager of the FDP parliamentary group . After leaving the federal government , he was elected deputy chairman in 1963 and finally chairman of the FDP parliamentary group in 1968. As such, he acted as opposition leader against the Kiesinger government until the Brandt government took office on October 21, 1969 . From 1969 to 1972 and 1976 to 1983 he was also deputy chairman of the joint committee pursuant to Article 53a of the Basic Law and from 1972 until December 8, 1982 deputy chairman of the sports committee.

It was not until 1991 that Mischnick left the office of parliamentary group chairman at his own request, which he held longer than any other parliamentary group chairman in the history of the Bundestag, and was then elected honorary chairman of the FDP parliamentary group. Mischnick's speech to the German Bundestag on the occasion of the no-confidence vote against Helmut Schmidt on October 1, 1982 is famous .

In 1990, Wolfgang Mischnick entered the Bundestag via the state list of Saxony and before that always via the state list of Hesse .

Public offices

After the Bundestag election in 1961 , Mischnick was appointed Minister for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims in the Federal Government led by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer on November 14, 1961 . In the course of the Spiegel affair he resigned on November 19, 1962 together with the other FDP federal ministers, but was reappointed to this office on December 13, 1962. With the resignation of Konrad Adenauer, Mischnick left the federal government on October 11, 1963.

Political Initiatives

Pension policy

In 1963, Mischnick presented a proposal for pension reform , the so-called "Mischnick Plan", which was supposed to replace Adenauer's 1957 pension reform. On the one hand, it was aimed at protecting fellow citizens outside the existing, wage-based pension system , such as the self-employed or social welfare recipients, also in old age. On the other hand, more freedom should be created for private provision. The “Mischnick Plan” therefore provided for a state-financed basic pension, as well as a contribution pension into which 15 years were to be paid, as well as a subsequent private provision.

Sports policy

Mischnick owed part of his popularity to his commitment to sports politics. He was a member of the sports committee of the German Bundestag from 1969 to 1994 and was at times its deputy chairman. He was a member of the board of trustees of Deutsche Sporthilfe , founder of the Wolfgang Mischnick Cup for walkers and until 1990 a member of the board of directors at Eintracht Frankfurt for over 15 years . He also worked in the Sepp Herberger Foundation . A tennis tournament for a Wolfgang Mischnick Cup was held regularly at the FDP. He was skeptical about the boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and advocated the independence of the sport. Ultimately, however, he supported the boycott out of solidarity with the United States.

Awards

Mischnick was a Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honor . He was awarded the Great Cross of Merit with Star and Shoulder Ribbon in 1968 and the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1973 . He was also awarded the Great Gold Medal of Honor with Star of the Republic of Austria , the Banner Order of the Hungarian Republic, the Order of Merit of the Free State of Saxony , the Hessian Order of Merit , the Wilhelm Leuschner Medal , the Freiherr vom Stein plaque , the Roman plaque of the city of Frankfurt am Main , the Reinhold Maier Medal and the Wolfgang Döring Medal .

In Gröditz , the former street Am Osttor was renamed Wolfgang-Mischnick-Straße .

Publications

literature

  • Walter Henkels : 99 Bonn heads , reviewed and supplemented edition, Fischer-Bücherei, Frankfurt am Main 1965, p. 183 ff.
  • Gerrit Koch (Ed.): Gerlach meets Mischnick: Documentation of a discussion of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Berlin 1999 . Friedrich Naumann Foundation 2008, ISBN 978-3-8370-5652-5 .
  • Sven Prietzel: Passionately pragmatic for Germany. Wolfgang Mischnick and liberalism during the division of Germany. Comdok, Berlin 2015.
  • Typical Mischnick. A powerful liberal. Anecdotal and caricatured presented by Horst Dahlmeyer. 2nd Edition. Bertelsmann, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-570-01868-7 .

Web links

Wikiquote: Wolfgang Mischnick  - Quotes
Commons : Wolfgang Mischnick  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Singer: Handbuch des Deutschen Bundestag , 3rd electoral period, and data handbook on the history of the German Bundestag 1949 to 1999 .
  2. ↑ Deviating: Vita Wolfgang Mischnick.
  3. ↑ knerger.de: The grave of Wolfgang Mischnick .
  4. ↑ Volker Stalmann : "... place social equilibrium next to freedom and nationality"? The social policy of the FDP 1949–1969 , in: Jahrbuch zur Liberalismus-Forschung 29 (2017), pp. 241–264, here p. 260 f.
  5. ^ Arnd Krüger : Sport and Politics. From gymnastics father Jahn to state amateur. Torchbearers, Hanover 1975.
  6. ↑ Magnus Bürger points winner against Friedrich Merz ... in tennis. In: oberberg-aktuell.de. October 1, 2003, accessed March 20, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Olympic boycott: "Why should we sacrifice?" In: Der Spiegel . No. 18 , 1980 ( online ).
  8. ↑ Announcement of awards of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Federal Gazette . Vol. 25, No. 43, March 9, 1973.
  9. ↑ Paul Namyslik: Chronicle of Roeder Gröditz city. Meißner Tageblatt-Verlag, Nieschütz 2005, ISBN 978-3-929705-11-9 , p. 209.
personal data
SURNAME Mischnick, Wolfgang
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mischnick, Friedrich Adolf Wolfgang (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (FDP), Member of the Bundestag, Member of the Bundestag
DATE OF BIRTH September 29, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH October 6, 2002
Place of death Bad Soden am Taunus