1. Erich Ollenhauer was the leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany from 1952 until 1963.
14 Facts About Erich Ollenhauer
1. 2.
Erich Ollenhauer was a key leader of the opposition to Konrad Adenauer in the Bundestag.
3.
Erich Ollenhauer was a close ally of the chairman Kurt Schumacher, and worked on party organization.
4.
Where Schumacher was a passionate intellectual, Ollenhauer was a thorough and efficient bureaucrat.
5.
Erich Ollenhauer became party leader after Schumacher's death in 1952.
6.
Erich Ollenhauer remained party leader until his death, but yielded to the charismatic Berlin mayor Willy Brandt in 1961 as the party's candidate for chancellor.
7.
Erich Ollenhauer was born in Magdeburg and joined the SPD in 1920.
8.
In London, he kept close ties to the Labour Party, which financially supported the expatriate SPD, of which Erich Ollenhauer was a member.
9.
Erich Ollenhauer worked with the Union of German Socialist Organisations in Great Britain.
10.
Erich Ollenhauer entered the Bundestag after the 1949 German federal elections.
11.
Erich Ollenhauer ran as the SPD's candidate for Chancellor of Germany in the 1953 and 1957 German elections, both of which were lost to Konrad Adenauer's CDU.
12.
In 1957, Erich Ollenhauer called for a trans-European security alliance, in which a reunified Germany would serve as an equal partner.
13.
In 1961, Erich Ollenhauer declined to run for Chancellor a third time and instead supported the candidacy of Berlin mayor Willy Brandt.
14.
Erich Ollenhauer died in Bonn on 14 December 1963 from pulmonary embolism.