Wilhelm Hoegner | |
|---|---|
 Wilhelm Hoegner (1947) | |
| Minister President ofBavaria | |
| 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 | (1887-09-23)23 September 1887 |
| Died | 5 March 1980(1980-03-05) (aged 92) |
| Party | Social Democratic Party |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Alma mater | University of Erlangen–Nuremberg |
| Occupation | Lawyer |
Wilhelm Johann Harald Hoegner (23 September 1887 – 5 March 1980) was the secondBavarianminister-president afterWorld War II (1945–1946 and 1954–1957), and the father of the Bavarian constitution. He has been the onlySocial Democrat to hold this office since 1920.
Wilhelm Hoegner was born inMunich in 1887, the son of Michael Georg Hoegner and Therese Engelhardt. Growing up inBurghausen, he studied law in Munich,Berlin andErlangen. After graduation, he worked as a lawyer, then as aStaatsanwalt, a stateprosecutor. In 1919 he became a member of the SPD. He married Anna Woock in 1918, with whom he had two children.
From 1924 to 1930, Hoegner was a Social Democratic member of theLandtag of Bavaria. He was involved in the investigation into Hitler'sBeer Hall Putsch in 1923 and through this became part of the opposition to theNazis. He published, anonymously, a paper on the findings of the investigation, which is considered an important historical document due to the fact that the Nazis destroyed all official reports from the inquest after 1933.[1] He actively opposed Hitler in his time as a member of the GermanReichstag from 1930 to 1933. For this reason, he was dismissed from government service after theNazi takeover in 1933 and had to escape toAustria, and from there, in 1934, toSwitzerland, 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 calledDemokratisches Deutschland, aimed against the Nazis.
Upon 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 ofFritz 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 theDecember 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 theChristian Social Union (CSU), he opposed this move and temporarily lost influence within the SPD, resigning from his ministerial post. In October 1946 he served as one of two German witnesses at the execution of the war criminals sentenced to death by theInternational Military Tribunal (the Nuremberg Tribunal).[3]
From 1946 to 1970, he was again a member of the BavarianLandtag (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 thePalatinate with the rest of Bavaria, but ultimately failed, as only 7.6 percent of all eligible voters in the Palatinate voted for reunification.[4]
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 the1957 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 GermanBundestag 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.[5]
Hoegner died, aged 92, almost blind but mentally still in full capacity, on 5 March 1980 in Munich.[6]
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Minister-President of Bavaria 1945 – 1946 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister-President of Bavaria 1954 – 1957 | Succeeded by |
Minister-presidents of the Free State ofBavaria | ||
|---|---|---|
| Revolutionary period (1918–19) |  | |
| Weimar period (1919–33) | ||
| Nazi period (1933–45) | ||
| Modern Bavaria (since 1945) | ||
* Acting | ||
