Herbert Wehner
Herbert Richard Wehner (11 July 1906 – 19 January 1990) was a German politician. A former member of the Communist Party, he joined the Social Democrats (SPD) after World War II. He served as Federal Minister of Intra-German Relations from 1966 to 1969 and thereafter as chairman of the SPD parliamentary group in the Bundestag until 1983.
Herbert Wehner
Parliament established
11 July 1906
Dresden, German Empire
19 January 1990 (aged 83)
Bonn, West Germany
Lotte Loebinger
Lotte Burmester
Greta Burmester
During his tenure in the Bundestag from 1949 to 1983, Wehner became (in-)famous for his caustic rhetoric and heckling style, often hurling personal insults at MPs with whom he disagreed. He holds the record for official censures (77 by one count, 78 or 79 by others) handed down by the presiding officer.
Rhetoric[edit]
Wehner held an infamous reputation among members of the Bundestag (and the public) for his sharp, and often insulting, rhetoric towards MPs that disagreed with him.
His remarks about political opponents often revolved around insulting word plays with their respective last names. One notable exception is his pejorative neologism "Düffeldoffel" which he used to insult Helmut Kohl. His sharp comments would not stop at his own party either: When the SPD-MP Franz Josef Zebisch complained about how the alphabetic seating order in the Bundestag in the 1960s left him at the back of the room, Wehner told him to just rename himself to “Comrade Asshole”.
German media occasionally depicts Wehner and CSU-politician Franz Josef Strauß to have been political rivals as both had highly influential yet never the highest positions within their respective parties and Strauß was also known for a fierce albeit less personally insulting rhetoric.
Wehner's reception across the aisle among CDU/CSU politicians was mostly negative due to his rhetoric. However, CDU politician Heiner Geißler acknowledged Wehner's uncompromising style of standing up for his party's positions as "the biggest parliamentary howitzer of all time".