Wolfgang Tiefensee

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Wolfgang Tiefensee (2019)

Wolfgang Erwin Bernhard Tiefensee (born January 4, 1955 in Gera , GDR ) is a German politician ( SPD ). He has been the Thuringian Minister of Economics and Science in the Ramelow II cabinet since March 4, 2020 , after having held this office in the Ramelow I cabinet from December 5, 2014 to February 5, 2020 . He is also Deputy Prime Minister of the State of Thuringia. He has been state chairman of the SPD Thuringia since 2018 and was the top candidate in the state elections in 2019 , but resigned his parliamentary mandate on December 4, 2019.

Tiefensee was Lord Mayor of Leipzig from 1998 to 2005 and Federal Minister for Transport, Building and Urban Development from 2005 to 2009 as well as the Federal Government Commissioner for the new federal states in the Merkel I cabinet . From 2012 to 2014 he was the economic and energy policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group and chairman of the Association Against Forgetting - For Democracy .

Life

Origin and school time

Wolfgang Tiefensee grew up in a very musical Roman Catholic family as the son of the composer Siegfried Tiefensee and received instrumental lessons at an early age. As a student he won the Leipzig Bach Prize on the cello , but did not pursue a musical career.

Due to his Christian upbringing, he was not a member of the Young Pioneers and the FDJ , did not take part in the youth consecration and refused to serve as a weapon in the NVA .

One brother, the priest Eberhard Tiefensee , is a professor emeritus of philosophy and was rector of the Catholic-Theological Faculty of Erfurt (today the Catholic-Theological Faculty of the University of Erfurt ). Another brother, Volker Tiefensee (CDU), is also a politician and a former member of the Saxon state parliament .

Private

Wolfgang Tiefensee lives in Erfurt and Gera. He is the father of four children who were divorced in 2011. Tiefensee lives in a partnership with Sibylle Müller, the managing director of Kulturfabrik Apolda .

education and profession

After graduating from high school in 1973, Wolfgang Tiefensee earned his professional qualification as a specialist in communications technology in 1974 . After his military service, which he completed without a weapon as a construction soldier until 1976, he began studying at an engineering school and became an engineer for industrial electronics in 1979 . From 1979 to 1986 he worked as a development engineer in the Department of Research and Development of State-Owned Telecommunications Leipzig plant . During this time he completed an extra-occupational degree as a specialist engineer for computer science in construction in 1982 .

From 1986 to 1990 he was a development engineer in the electrical power systems section (Director: Siegfried Altmann ) at the Technical University of Leipzig . In 1988 he completed another part-time course with a degree in electrical engineering .

Political career

In 1989 Wolfgang Tiefensee became politically active for the first time in the citizens' movement Democracy Now , which he represented at the round table in Leipzig . The Round Table sent him to the Leipzig city ​​administration as a full-time city councilor . For a short time he was an independent city ​​councilor of the Bündnis 90 parliamentary group in the Leipzig city ​​council .

In 1990 he was elected head of the Leipzig School Administration Office. From 1992 he was City Council ( Assistant ) for youth, school and education. In 1994 he then became mayor and first deputy to the incumbent mayor Hinrich Lehmann-Grube as well as an alderman for youth, school and sport. In 1995 he joined the SPD.

1998–2005: Lord Mayor of the City of Leipzig

Wolfgang Tiefensee (2004)

On April 26, 1998, Wolfgang Tiefensee was elected Lord Mayor of Leipzig for seven years in the second ballot with 48.4 percent of the votes (election with a simple majority) and exercised this office from July 1. In the first year of Tiefensee's tenure, the Leipzig city area was considerably enlarged by numerous incorporations (including Böhlitz-Ehrenberg , Engelsdorf , Wiederitzsch ). As a result, the number of inhabitants rose by 12 percent, but the goal of raising it back above the 500,000 mark was not achieved until 2005. Tiefensee was committed to attracting large companies to Leipzig. Porsche Leipzig was founded in 1999 and the BMW plant in Leipzig in 2001 . In 2004, DHL decided to move its European air freight hub to Leipzig / Halle Airport .

From 2001 to 2005 Wolfgang Tiefensee was Vice President of the Saxon City and Municipal Council , and from 2002 to 2004 he was also President of the European city network Eurocities .

After the federal election in 2002 , Tiefensee rejected Gerhard Schröder's offer to join the federal government in Berlin as Federal Minister for Transport, Building and Housing . He justified this with his strong ties to Leipzig and his involvement in the trade fair city's bid for the Olympics. In 2003, Wolfgang Tiefensee was a member of the “Modern Services on the Labor Market” commission that developed the Hartz concept for Agenda 2010 . During Tiefensee's tenure, the city of Leipzig sold drinking water supply facilities from the municipal waterworks (KWL) to US investors in order to lease them back from them ( cross-border leasing ). This business caused high losses for the city ( KWL scandal ).

As Lord Mayor, he stood up for the application of the city of Leipzig to host the 2012 Summer Olympics and was deputy chairman of the supervisory board of the application company "Leipzig 2012 GmbH". At the presentation of the Olympic application, Tiefensee played the melody of the canon Dona nobis pacem on the cello . Leipzig was selected by the National Olympic Committee as a German candidate city, but only came in sixth place in the international selection process of the International Olympic Committee and did not qualify for the final round. After the end of the Olympic application, Tiefensee was criticized for illegal commission payments to the shareholders of the application GmbH.

In 2004, Tiefensee renounced the SPD's top candidacy for the Saxon state election . In October 2004, Tiefensee was a member of the SPD delegation in the coalition negotiations with the CDU to form the new Saxon state government .

In the Mayor election on April 10, 2005, Tiefensee was confirmed in office with 67.1 percent of the votes in the first ballot and officially retained this position until the inauguration of his successor Burkhard Jung on March 29, 2006. After Tiefensee's appointment as Federal Minister, his first deputy and Deputy for General Administration Andreas Müller provisionally oversees the mayor's office.

2005–2009: Federal Minister of Transport in the grand coalition

In his role as Federal Minister for Transport, Building and Urban Development, Wolfgang Tiefensee speaks at the Political Dialogue on Urban Redevelopment East in Berlin (June 17, 2008)

On October 13, 2005, the SPD Presidium nominated him for a ministerial post in the federal government to be formed, and on November 15, he was elected to the SPD's federal executive committee. On November 22, 2005, Tiefensee took up the post of Federal Minister for Transport, Building and Urban Development and at the same time became the Federal Government Commissioner for the new federal states . On October 27, 2009, Tiefensee received his certificate of discharge as Federal Minister.

Tiefensee initiated one of the four highway pilot projects with public-private partnerships (PPP) and was involved in the establishment of transport infrastructure finance company involved. Even then, he was warned that the toll system would not be sustainable.

According to an internal survey by the Federal Ministry of Transport, the leadership qualities of Tiefensee were questioned by a considerable part of the employees of the ministry, so 57 percent of the respondents stated that he did this task “rather poorly” or “poorly”, 11 percent said the opposite. In addition, he was criticized because of the personnel around the department head Martina Doehler-Behzadi, who headed the building culture department in the ministry. Tiefensee filled the department head with Ms. Doehler-Behzadi, whom he knew personally from his time as Mayor of Leipzig, but immediately after being hired, she received salaries in accordance with salary group B3 instead of the usual group A15. As a result, their salaries were around 25,000 euros per year higher than usual.

2009–2014: Member of the Bundestag

Tiefensee at the opening of the Leipzig City Tunnel (December 14, 2013)

Tiefensee had been a member of the SPD party executive since 2005. Since June 2009, Tiefensee has been chairman of the Forum East Germany of Social Democracy eV (FOD). The East Germany Forum deals with current problems that have to be dealt with in the new federal states. He is also deputy chairman of the board of trustees of the “Lebendige Stadt” foundation and a member of the senate of the German National Foundation. Tiefensee is an advisory member of the SPD Fundamental Values ​​Commission (2016).

Tiefensee was a member of the German Bundestag from 2009 to 2014. In the 2009 and 2013 elections , he stood in the Leipzig II constituency and reached his seat on the Saxony state list . Since June 2012, he was economic and later energy policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group and was to succeed in this function Garrelt Duin chosen in the course of his appointment as Minister of Economy, Energy, Industry, SMEs and crafts of the country North Rhine-Westphalia from resigned from the Bundestag. In December 2014 he renounced his mandate and Detlef Müller took his place .

Since 2014: State politician in Thuringia

After Bodo Ramelow was elected Prime Minister of the Free State of Thuringia on December 5, 2014, Wolfgang Tiefensee became Minister of Economics and Science in the Ramelow I cabinet .

He has been chairman of the SPD Thuringia since March 11, 2018 . In this position he was confirmed on November 10, 2018 with 89.5% of the state party conference in Arnstadt and acclaimed as the top candidate for the state election in Thuringia 2019 . For the first time, the SPD refused to run for the office of Thuringian Prime Minister. In the state elections he was elected as the top candidate of the SPD via the list as a member of the state parliament. He clearly missed the direct mandate in the Gera II constituency with 15.3 percent. On December 4, 2019, Tiefensee resigned the parliamentary mandate he had acquired through the party list in the state elections on October 27, 2019, and Thomas Hartung succeeded him .

Criticism and controversy

Hartz IV recipients as cheap security forces

After two failed bomb attacks on regional trains at the end of July 2006 , the minister suggested using Hartz IV receivers as patrols in local public transport in order to increase security. Some of these statements met with sharp rejection. In November 2006, a three-year model project called “Aktiv-Office” began in Leipzig, in which around 300 unemployed recipients of unemployment benefit II travel on trains and buses to stop rioters on the one hand, and mothers with small children and people with restricted mobility on the other to help and answer simple local transport questions from passengers.

Privatization of Deutsche Bahn

The approach of Tiefensee with regard to the intended privatization of Deutsche Bahn is controversial . There are various models for structuring the ownership and operating relationships of the rail infrastructure, in particular the rail network . In response to criticism from Hartmut Mehdorn , Tiefensee advocated a close connection between infrastructure and German railways in autumn 2006, which was then decided by the federal cabinet. In the meantime, federal ministries and economic institutes have determined that this project is incompatible with the Basic Law . Ultimately, as a private company, Deutsche Bahn AG would benefit from state services and less serve the common good.

Speed ​​limit

According to media reports, in March 2007 the Ministry of Transport used figures from 1996 to substantiate the alleged irrelevance of a speed limit on motorways for the CO 2 balance .

Overflight ban for Lufthansa Cargo

On October 28, 2007, the Russian authorities issued an overflight ban on Lufthansa Cargo , presumably for economic reasons. Russia asked the German group to relocate its freight hub from Astana in Kazakhstan to Krasnoyarsk in Siberia . Despite the demand not to allow himself to be blackmailed, Tiefensee gave in surprisingly on November 2 and declared that Lufthansa was ready to give in and thus to move the Lufthansa hub to Krasnoyarsk in Russia. His behavior brought him renewed criticism.

Bonus payments for board members of Deutsche Bahn

As part of the planned IPO of Deutsche Bahn, u. a. Controversial special bonuses were also agreed, which would have flowed to the board of directors in the event of the railway privatization . At the end of October 2008, Tiefensee initially denied having known about these royalties and dismissed his State Secretary Matthias von Randow on the grounds that he had not informed him about the payments. This reasoning later turned out to be wrong, as information about the special payments had already been made public at the beginning of September 2008. On November 2, 2008, the Financial Times Deutschland reported that Tiefensee had already been informed by the chairman of the supervisory board, Werner Müller , in a personal phone call in mid-August and had not expressed any concerns during this phone call.

At the beginning of November 2008, Tiefensee once again made negative headlines when he suggested that the board members should voluntarily waive the bonus payments approved by his ministry.

Volunteering

On June 12, 2012, Wolfgang Tiefensee was elected as the successor to Joachim Gauck, who resigned after his election as Federal President, as Chairman of the Association Against Forgetting - For Democracy . He gave up this office at the end of 2014 when he joined the Thuringian state government.

Honors

Wolfgang Tiefensee has been the first German honorary professor at Nanjing University since 1999 . In 2003 the French Republic awarded him the title of " Knight of the Legion of Honor ". In the same year he received the Golden Hen Media Prize in the business category. The Foreign Direct Investment Magazine (fDi) published in London voted Wolfgang Tiefensee 2005 Europe's “Personality of the Year”. In 2004 he received the Golden City Hall Man of the City of Vienna. In 2009 the political magazine Cicero elected Wolfgang Tiefensee as the most important politician in the new federal states after Chancellor Angela Merkel. In 2003 he was awarded the Golden Badge of Honor by the Oskar Patzelt Foundation .

Editing

Wolfgang Tiefensee was co-editor of the political two-month magazine Berliner Republik, which was discontinued in 2017 .

Cabinets

Publications

literature

Web links

Commons : Wolfgang Tiefensee  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ bundeswahlleiter.de ( Memento from October 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ): Preliminary result of the 2009 Bundestag election; Selected applicants for the state list: Saxony (accessed October 13, 2009)
  2. ↑ http://www.thueringen.de/th1/tsk/aktuell/veranstaltungen/82320/index.aspx
  3. ^ Minister Tiefensee (63) - New apartment and new wife. BILD Thuringia, accessed on October 6, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Diana Becht-Zwetkov: "Successful industrial settlement is teamwork". In: Welt am Sonntag , May 8, 2005.
  5. ↑ Uwe Müller: The miracle of Leipzig. In: Die Welt , April 14, 2003.
  6. ↑ Kai Schöneberg: Another Dobrindt goat. the daily newspaper, September 11, 2017, accessed on September 12, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Our own employees give Tiefensee a bad report
  8. ↑ 2006 federal salary table
  9. ^ Tiefensee re-elected as state chairman of the SPD. MDR Thuringia, archived from the original on August 15, 2019 ; accessed on November 30, 2018 .
  10. ↑ State SPD renounces candidates for Prime Minister's office. Der Tagesspiegel, February 20, 2019, accessed on October 28, 2019 .
  11. ↑ change of mandate in the Thuringian state parliament. Thuringian State Parliament, accessed on December 7, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Tiefensee against general speed limit. ( Memento of May 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Press release of February 21, 2007
  13. ↑ Own employees give Tiefensee a bad report from Spiegel Online , November 4, 2007
  14. ↑ Shock cure for the German high-flyers Spiegel Online , November 2, 2007
  15. ↑ Tiefensee embarrassed himself with misinformation
  16. ↑ Spiegel-Online: Tiefensee is said to have known about bonus payments as early as August
  17. ↑ Tiefensee asks railway bosses to waive bonuses
  18. ↑ [1] , Against Forgetting - For Democracy
  19. ↑ Laudation ( Memento from January 31, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  20. ↑ Badges of honor from the Oskar Patzelt Foundation. Oskar-Patzelt Foundation. Initiative for medium-sized businesses. Retrieved September 9, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Tiefensee, Wolfgang
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tiefensee, Wolfgang Erwin Bernhard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), Member of the Bundestag
DATE OF BIRTH 4th January 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Gera