Wilhelm Johann Harald Hoegner (23 September 1887 – 5 March 1980) was the second Bavarian minister-president after World War II (1945–1946 and 1954–1957), and the father of the Bavarian constitution. He has been the only Social Democrat to hold this office since 1920.
Wilhelm Hoegner | |
|---|---|
 Wilhelm Hoegner (1947) | |
| Minister President of Bavaria | |
| In office 14 December 1954 – 8 October 1957 | |
| President | Theodor Heuss |
| Chancellor | Konrad Adenauer |
| Preceded by | Hans Ehard |
| Succeeded by | Hanns Seidel |
| In office 28 September 1945 – 16 December 1946 | |
| Preceded by | Fritz Schäffer |
| Succeeded by | Hans Ehard |
| Minister of the Interior of Bavaria | |
| In office 18 December 1950 – 14 December 1954 | |
| Preceded by | Willi Ankermüller |
| Succeeded by | August Geislhöringer |
| Minister of Justice of Bavaria | |
| In office 28 September 1945 – 20 September 1947 | |
| Preceded by | Hans Ehard |
| Succeeded by | Josef Müller |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 23 September 1887 Munich, Kingdom of Bavaria, German Empire |
| Died | 5 March 1980 (aged 92) Munich, Bavaria, West Germany |
| Political party | Social Democratic Party |
| Spouse |
Anna Woock (m. 1918) |
| Children | 2 |
| Alma mater | University of Erlangen–Nuremberg |
| Occupation | Lawyer |
Early life
editWilhelm Hoegner was born in Munich in 1887, the son of Michael Georg Hoegner and Therese Engelhardt. Growing up in Burghausen, he studied law in Munich, Berlin and Erlangen. After graduation, he worked as a lawyer, then as a Staatsanwalt, a state prosecutor. In 1919 he became a member of the SPD. He married Anna Woock in 1918, with whom he had two children.
Interwar politics and exile
editFrom 1924 to 1930, Hoegner was a Social Democratic member of the Landtag of Bavaria. He was involved in the investigation into Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 and through this became part of the opposition to the Nazis. He published, anonymously, a paper on the findings of the investigation, which is considered an important historical document due to the fact that the Nazis destroyed all official reports from the inquest after 1933.[1] He actively opposed Hitler in his time as a member of the German Reichstag from 1930 to 1933. For this reason, he was dismissed from government service after the Nazi takeover in 1933 and had to escape to Austria, and from there, in 1934, to Switzerland, where he worked as a freelance writer. He was in contact there with other German refugees from the Nazis and worked with them in an organisation called Demokratisches Deutschland, aimed against the Nazis.
Postwar politics
editUpon his return to Bavaria in June 1945, he served at the court in Munich. He became minister-president of Bavaria from 1945 to 1946, after the sudden dismissal of Fritz Schäffer,[2] also holding the post of Minister of Justice until 1947. He became known at this time as the father of the new Bavarian constitution. After losing the December 1946 election, he was replaced as Bavarian minister-president by Hans Ehard but remained as Minister of Justice. When his party decided to leave the coalition with the Christian Social Union (CSU), he opposed this move and temporarily lost influence within the SPD, resigning from his ministerial post.
From 1946 to 1970, he was again a member of the Bavarian Landtag (parliament), leading the SPD faction there from 1958 to 1962. He held the post of Minister of the Interior from 1950 to 1954, when Bavaria was ruled by a CSU-SPD coalition. During this time, he devoted a great deal of effort towards the reunification of the Palatinate with the rest of Bavaria, but ultimately failed, as only 7.6 percent of all eligible voters in the Palatinate voted for reunification.[3]
He became minister-president of Bavaria for a second time in 1954, when he led a four-party grand coalition government until 1957. The coalition fell apart before the end of its term after the 1957 federal elections and, as of 2018, Wilhelm Hoegner is still the last non-CSU minister-president of Bavaria.
He was also a member of the German Bundestag from 1961 to 1962.
While a social democrat, Hoegner was not a doctrinaire socialist, and he always preferred a common-sense approach to politics and the economy, rather than radical theories. He considered being a social democrat to be wholly compatible with Christian ethics and values—an important factor in the traditionally conservative and Catholic-dominated state of Bavaria.[4]
Hoegner died, aged 92, almost blind but mentally still in full capacity, on 5 March 1980 in Munich.[5]
"The Guilt of the Communists"
editHoegner's book Die verratene Republik (The Betrayed Republic), published in Munich in 1979, contains a remarkable chapter with the title "The Guilt of the Communists". Hoegner blames the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) as having played a decisive role in Hitler's assumption of power. The declared main enemy of the Communists was not Hitler or the conservative parties in Germany, but the SPD, the social democrats, whom the Communists called the "social fascists". Hoegner claims that the Communists' intention was to bring Hitler to power whereupon a Communist revolution in Germany would take place and a Communist dictatorship would be established. Hoegner mentions astonishing claims in this chapter; for example, that 500,000 communists had voted for Hitler in the election for president of the German Reich in 1932.
Honours
edit- Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1953)
- Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (1956)
- Grand Decoration of Honour in Silver with Sash for Services to the Republic of Austria (1957)[6]
- Honorary doctorate at the University of Munich
Works
edit- Die verratene Republik (in German), by Wilhelm Hoegner, Munich, 1979.
- Der Volksbetrug der Nationalsozialisten (in German), by Wilhelm Hoegner
- Der Schwierige Außenseiter: Erinnerungen eines Abgeordneten, Emigranten und Ministerpräsidenten (in German), by Wilhelm Hoegner, Munich, publisher: Isar Verlag, 1959
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Anonymous (was Wilhelm Hoegner), Hitler und Kahr. Die bayerischen Napoleonsgrößen von 1923, 1928 Historisches Lexikon Bayerns. Retrieved 9 May 2008 (in German)
- ^ "You Don't Know What You Want" Time Magazine, 8 October 1945. Retrieved 9 May 2008
- ^ Pfalz (19./20. Jahrhundert) Historisches Lexikon Bayerns. Retrieved 9 May 2008 (in German)
- ^ Anthony James Nicholls, Freedom with Responsibility: The Social Market Economy in Germany, 1918-1963 Oxford University Press, p. 251. Retrieved 3 May 2010
- ^ Hildegard Kronawitter, Wilhelm Hoegner (PDF) Retrieved 9 May 2008 (in German)
- ^ "Reply to a parliamentary question" (PDF) (in German). p. 37. Retrieved 2 October 2012.
Sources
edit- Universitätsbibliothek Regensburg - Boisls bayrische Biography - Wilhelm Hoegner pp. 356–357 (in German)
- Institut für Zeitgeschichte - Wilhelm Hoegner (in German)
- Wilhelm Hoeger biography Official Bavarian government website (in German)