Wilhelm Johann Harald Hoegner was the second Bavarian prime minister after World War II, and the father of the Bavarian constitution.
18 Facts About Wilhelm Hoegner
2.
Wilhelm Hoegner has been the only Social Democrat to hold this office since 1920.
3.
Wilhelm Hoegner was born in Munich in 1887, the son of Michael Georg Hoegner and Therese Engelhardt.
4.
Wilhelm Hoegner married Anna Woock in 1918, with whom he had two children.
5.
From 1924 to 1930, Hoegner was a Social Democratic member of the Landtag of Bavaria.
6.
Wilhelm Hoegner was involved in the investigation into Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 and through this became part of the opposition to the Nazis.
7.
Wilhelm Hoegner published, anonymously, a paper on the findings of the investigation, which is considered an important historical document due to the fact that the Nazis destroyed all official reports from the inquest after 1933.
8.
Wilhelm Hoegner actively opposed Hitler in his time as a member of the German Reichstag from 1930 to 1933.
9.
Wilhelm Hoegner was in contact there with other German refugees from the Nazis and worked with them in an organisation called Demokratisches Deutschland, aimed against the Nazis.
10.
Wilhelm Hoegner became prime minister of Bavaria from 1945 to 1946, after the sudden dismissal of Fritz Schaffer, holding the post of Minister of Justice until 1947.
11.
Wilhelm Hoegner became known at this time as the father of the new Bavarian constitution.
12.
Wilhelm Hoegner held the post of Minister of the Interior from 1950 to 1954, when Bavaria was ruled by a CSU-SPD coalition.
13.
Wilhelm Hoegner became prime minister of Bavaria for a second time in 1954, when he led a four-party grand coalition government until 1957.
14.
The coalition fell apart before the end of its term after the 1957 federal elections and, as of 2018, Wilhelm Hoegner is still the last non-CSU prime minister of Bavaria.
15.
Wilhelm Hoegner was a member of the German Bundestag from 1961 to 1962.
16.
Wilhelm Hoegner died, aged 92, almost blind but mentally still in full capacity, on 5 March 1980 in Munich.
17.
Wilhelm Hoegner's book Die verratene Republik, published in Munich in 1979, contains a remarkable chapter with the title "The Guilt of the Communists".
18.
Wilhelm Hoegner blames the Communist Party of Germany as having played a decisive role in Hitler's assumption of power.