Kurt Georg Kiesinger
Kurt Georg Kiesinger (German: [ˈkʊʁt ˈɡeːɔʁk ˈkiːzɪŋɐ]; 6 April 1904 – 9 March 1988) was a German politician who served as the chancellor of West Germany from 1 December 1966 to 21 October 1969. Before he became Chancellor he served as Minister–President of Baden-Württemberg from 1958 to 1966 and as President of the Federal Council from 1962 to 1963. He was Chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1967 to 1971.
Kurt Georg Kiesinger
Willy Brandt
Hermann Veit
Wolfgang Haußmann
Hans Ehard
Leo Wagner
Rudolf Seiters
Wilhelm Rawe
Olaf Baron von Wrangel
Paul Mikat
multi-member district
multi-member district
multi-member district
Norbert Nothhelfer
Christian Rack
Anton Lutz
Constituency established
9 March 1988 (aged 83)
Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany
CDU (1946–1988)
Nazi Party (1933–1945)
2
Lawyer
Kiesinger gained his certificate as a lawyer in March 1933 and worked as a lawyer in Berlin's Kammergericht court from 1935 to 1940.[1] He had joined the Nazi Party in 1933, but remained a largely inactive member. To avoid conscription, in 1940 he was appointed to the broadcast policy department of the Foreign Office by Joachim von Ribbentrop, and became deputy head of the broadcasting and propaganda departments in 1942.[2] In 1946 he became a member of the Christian Democratic Union. He was elected to the Bundestag in 1949, and was a member of the Bundestag until 1958 and again from 1969 to 1980. He left federal politics for eight years (from 1958 to 1966) to serve as Minister–President of Baden-Württemberg, and subsequently became Chancellor by forming a grand coalition with Willy Brandt's Social Democratic Party.
Kiesinger was considered an outstanding orator and mediator, and was dubbed "Chief Silver Tongue". He was an author of poetry and various books, and founded the universities of Konstanz and Ulm as Minister–President of Baden-Württemberg. Kiesinger is also considered controversial, which is mainly due to his affiliation and work with the Nazis. The student movement in particular, but also other sections of the population, saw Kiesinger as a politician who stood for the inadequacy of Germans' coming to terms with the past.
Early life and Nazi activities[edit]
Kurt Georg Kiesinger was born in Ebingen, Kingdom of Württemberg (now Albstadt, Baden-Württemberg). His father was a commercial clerk in companies engaged in the local textile industry. Kiesinger was baptized Catholic because his mother was Catholic, though his father was Protestant. His mother died six months after he was born. His maternal grandmother exerted a strong influence on Kiesinger and encouraged him, while his father was indifferent to his advancement. After a year, his father was remarried to a Karoline Victoria Pfaff. They had seven children, of whom Kiesinger's half-sister Maria died a year after she was born. Pfaff was also a Catholic. Kiesinger was therefore shaped by both denominations and later referred to himself gladly as a "Protestant Catholic". Politically, Kiesinger grew up in a liberal, democratically-minded milieu.
Kiesinger studied law in Berlin and worked as a then as lawyer in Berlin from 1935 to 1940. As a student, he joined the (non-couleur wearing) Roman Catholic corporations KStV Alamannia Tübingen and Askania-Burgundia Berlin. He became a member of the Nazi Party in February 1933, but remained a largely inactive member.[3] In 1940, he was called to arms but avoided mobilization by finding a job in the Foreign Office's broadcasting department, rising quickly to become deputy head of the department from 1943 to 1945 and the department's liaison with the Propaganda Ministry.[4] He worked under Joachim von Ribbentrop, who would later be condemned to death at Nuremberg. After the war, he was interned by the Americans for his connection to Ribbentrop and spent 18 months in the Ludwigsburg camp before being released as a case of mistaken identity.[5]
Franco-German journalist Beate Klarsfeld demonstrated Kiesinger's close connections to Ribbentrop and Joseph Goebbels, the head of Nazi Germany's Propaganda Ministry.[6] She also asserted that Kiesinger had been chiefly responsible for the contents of German international broadcasts which included anti-Semitic and war propaganda, and had collaborated closely with SS functionaries Gerhard Rühle and Franz Alfred Six. The latter was responsible for mass murders in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe and was tried as a war criminal in the Einsatzgruppen Trial at Nuremberg. Even after becoming aware of the extermination of the Jews, Kiesinger had continued to produce anti-Semitic propaganda.[7] These allegations were based in part on documents that Albert Norden published about the culprits of war and Nazi crimes.[8]
Minister–President of Baden-Württemberg[edit]
Kiesinger became Minister-President of the state of Baden-Württemberg on 17 December 1958, an office in which he served until 1 December 1966. At that time Kiesinger was also a member of the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg. As Minister–President he was President of the German Bundesrat from 1 November 1962 to 31 October 1963. During his time in office the state founded two universities, the University of Konstanz and the University of Ulm.
In the early days of the Federal Republic of Germany, oversized coalitions were not uncommon at the state level, and so Kiesinger led a coalition of the CDU, SPD, FDP/DVP and BHE until 1960, but then a CDU/CSU-FDP coalition, coalition from 1960 to 1966. On 15 April 1961, the BHE disbanded.