Jakob Kaiser

Jakob Kaiser ( born February 8, 1888 in Hammelburg, † May 7, 1961 in Berlin) was a German politician ( center, later CDU), a resistance fighter against the Nazis, member of the Parliamentary Council and Federal Minister.

Life

The bookbinder Jakob Kaiser was a member of the Weimar Republic and the Centre Party was active in the Christian trade union movement. From 1924 he was the country manager of Christian Trade Unions for the Rhineland and Westphalia, and was even elected in the last half-way free parliamentary election in March 1933 for the center to parliament, to which he then belonged to November 1933. On March 23, 1933 Kaiser agreed with his group the Enabling Act. In 1933 he was in the driver circuit of the United unions, who wanted to unite the direction of trade unions in the fight against the Nazis into a single union. In 1934, he joined the resistance movement and worked closely with Wilhelm Leuschner and Max Habermann together. Because of the urgent suspicion of treasonable activity he was several months in 1938 by the Gestapo. After 1941, he continued his resistance activities in collaboration with Carl Friedrich Goerdeler and the leading men of the military opposition. Kaiser was a leading member in the Cologne district. The wave of arrests following the assassination attempt of July 20, 1944, he was able to escape by fleeing and hiding in a basement hiding in Potsdam- Babelsberg. He was the only member of the inner circle of the trade union resistance in Berlin. His wife Therese and the older daughter Elizabeth came into custody. Also arrested were the siblings of his wife.

After the Second World War, Emperor belonged to Andreas Hermes and Joseph Ersing the founders of the CDU in the Soviet occupation zone and fought unsuccessfully against the ever- widening gulf between the Soviet zone of occupation and the occupied by Western powers part of Germany. The conversion of the East- CDU in a block party he could not stop.

In the eyes of the victors was Emperor of the representatives of the left in the party. For the London Times, he was the antithesis of Konrad Adenauer: "The true leader of the Left in the CDU Jakob Kaiser, who heads the party in the Russian zone of Berlin. In part because of its ancient connection to the Christian trade unions, in part because he must be active in the Russian zone, preaches Emperor a non- Marxist socialism, which in turn rejects Adenauer. Emperor's influence [ in the party ] is only momentarily weak; his personality is likely to make him a future national leader in Germany is an independent state again. "

In December 1947, he and Ernst Lemmer was deposed as chairman of the East-CDU of the Soviet Military Administration. However, even after he emigrated to West Berlin Kaiser was an opponent of Western integration policy of the Chairman of the CDU in the British zone and later Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. He favored instead a non-aligned with Germany as a bridge between East and West. With Karl Arnold he also belonged to the group of former Christian union leaders who supported within the CDU for the socialization of key industries. He is one of the founders of the CDU social committees, whose chairman he was from 1949 to 1958. During the campaign for the parliamentary elections in 1953, he was the only leading CDU politician who openly campaigned for a grand coalition.

1948/49, was Emperor advisory as representatives of the Berlin City Council Member of the Parliamentary Council. Because of the special status of Berlin where he had no right to vote.

At the first general election in 1949 he was a candidate in food for a direct mandate and was elected with 32.4 % of the vote in parliament. In 1953 he claimed the constituency, now with an absolute majority of first preference votes. At the time of his 1949 to 1957 of membership in the German Bundestag, he held the post of Minister for All-German Affairs. He was one of the leading figures of the company founded on June 17, 1954 Board of Trustees Indivisible Germany. In his ministerial position, he engaged successfully for a positive vote in the referendum through which the Saarland in 1957 was the tenth state in the Federal Republic of Germany. 1950 to 1953 and 1956/57, he was Permanent Representative of the Federal Cabinet Council of Elders of the Bundestag. 1950 to 1958 he was deputy. National Chairman of the CDU. Jakob Kaiser died after a long illness on May 7, 1961 in Berlin.

Emperor was buried at Forest Cemetery in Berlin- Zehlendorf Nikolasee. The tomb is one of the graves honor the State of Berlin.

He was married to Therese Kaiser since 1918, born Mohr ( 1889-1952 ) and since 1953 with Elfriede Kaiser Nebgen ( 1890-1983 ) and father of two daughters.

Honors

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