1. Bernhard Vogel was the 4th Minister President of Rhineland-Palatinate from 1976 to 1988 and the second Minister President of Thuringia from 1992 to 2003.
20 Facts About Bernhard Vogel
1. 2.
Bernhard Vogel was the only person to have been head of two different German federal states and was the longest-governing Minister President of Germany.
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Bernhard Vogel served as the 28th and 40th President of the Bundesrat in 1976 to 1977 and 1987 to 1988.
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Bernhard Vogel received his Abitur in Munich in 1953, and began studies in political science, history, sociology, and economics, first in Heidelberg and then in Munich.
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Bernhard Vogel received his doctorate in 1960, while working as a research assistant at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Heidelberg.
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Bernhard Vogel became a lecturer there the following year, working in adult education.
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In 1963, Bernhard Vogel was elected to the municipal council of Heidelberg, but resigned two years later, following his election to the Bundestag.
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Bernhard Vogel joined the governing board of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany in the Rhineland Palatinate in 1965.
9.
From 1965 to 1967, Bernhard Vogel was a member of the German Bundestag, a position from which he resigned to assume the job of State Minister of Culture and Education in Rhineland-Palatinate under Minister President Peter Altmeier.
10.
Bernhard Vogel continued in the same cabinet position under Altmeier's successor in 1969, Helmut Kohl.
11.
In 1973, when Kohl became chair of the national CDU, Bernhard Vogel succeeded him as state party chair in Rhineland-Palatinate.
12.
In December 1976, Bernhard Vogel became Minister-President of Rhineland-Palatinate to replace Kohl, who had been elected a federal deputy.
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Bernhard Vogel immediately assumed the presidency of the Federal Council until 31 October 1977, at the same time becoming chairman of the supervisory board of the Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen, Germany's second largest public broadcaster.
14.
Bernhard Vogel gave up the chairmanship of the Adenauer Foundation in 1993.
15.
For reasons of age, Bernhard Vogel resigned from office as Minister-President on 5 June 2003.
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From 2001 until 2009, Bernhard Vogel served again as president of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Berlin.
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In 2012, Bernhard Vogel was awarded the Mercator Visiting Professorship for Political Management at the Universitat Essen-Duisburg's NRW School of Governance.
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Bernhard Vogel gave both seminars and lectures at the university.
19.
Bernhard Vogel was nominated by his party as delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the President of Germany in 2022.
20.
Bernhard Vogel died in Speyer on 2 March 2025, at the age of 92.