Siegfried Balke
Siegfried Balke ( born June 1, 1902 in Bochum, † June 11, 1984 in Munich) was a German politician ( CSU).
He was from 1953 to 1956 Federal Minister for Post and Telecommunications from 1956 to 1962 and Federal Minister for Atomic Questions (from 1957: Federal Minister of Nuclear Energy and Water ) of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Education and work
Balke was the eldest of four sons of master tailor William Balke. The family moved shortly after birth Siegfried first to Daufenbach, his mother 's home town in the Westerwald. The rest of his childhood spent Balke in Koblenz- Ehrenbreitstein. On the advice of the Protestant minister, he made as an external exam at the secondary school in Gummersbach.
1920 Balke began a study of chemistry, which he finished in 1924 as a chemist and in 1925 awarded the degree of Dr. Ing. In the Nazi period, he was classified as a " half-Jew " what a university career prevented. From 1925 to 1952 he worked in various chemical companies before he Director of Wacker -Chemie GmbH was founded in 1952. Wacker Chemie has until 1945 to 50 % of the IG Colors, then controlled by the color Höechst. After 1945, Balke was one of the rare non- incriminated in the boardrooms of German chemistry, which earned him the chairmanship of the Association of Bavarian chemical industry. Since 1956 he was Honorary Professor of Chemistry Economics at the Ludwig- Maximilians- University of Munich.
After his resignation as Minister of Atomic Energy, he was from 1964 to 1969 president of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations ( BDA) and Chairman of the Technical Inspection (TÜV ).
Balke was co-editor of Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry and Chemical industry magazines and the nuclear industry.
Party
Since January 16, 1954 Balke was a member of the CSU. He joined her at first as Minister without set up her own power base.
Member of Parliament
From 1957 to 1969 Balke was a member of the German Bundestag.
Siegfried Balke 1957 and 1961, drafted as a directly elected representative of the constituency Munich-North, 1965 on the state list of Bavaria in the Bundestag.
Public offices
After the parliamentary elections in 1953, he was (still without a party ) appointed on the proposal of the CSU parliamentary group in the German Bundestag on 10 December 1953 as Federal Minister for Post and Telecommunications in led by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer government. Among others was crucial to the appeal Balkes that unlike his predecessor, he was Protestant, and thus remained in the Cabinet denominational proportional representation. On October 16, 1956, he took over the leadership of the Federal Ministry for Atomic Questions. After the parliamentary elections of 1957 his department was renamed the Federal Ministry for Nuclear Energy and Water, finally, after the general election in 1961 it was called the Federal Ministry for Nuclear Energy. In the cabinet reshuffle after the Spiegel Affair Balke was no longer considered. The news of his release, he learned upon entering his ministry by the doorman. He retired from the Federal Government on 13 December 1962.
In Balkes division and tenure, the foundation of the German Electron Synchrotron, the biggest German research center for particle physics fell. While the interest of Balke's predecessor Franz Josef Strauss was particularly true of military nuclear technology, Balke was particularly interested in civilian research. In 1957, he introduced himself publicly on the side of the signatories of the Göttingen Manifesto. Stronger than ostrich and more than his successor in office Balke was a representative of the interests of the nuclear industry. He represented the nuclear independence of the German nuclear industry and its independence from abroad.