Gustav Heinemann
| Gustav Heinemann | |
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Gustav Heinemann in 1969
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President of Germany (West Germany) |
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In office 1 July 1969 – 30 June 1974 |
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| Chancellor |
Kurt Georg Kiesinger Willy Brandt Helmut Schmidt |
| Preceded by | Heinrich Lübke |
| Succeeded by | Walter Scheel |
| Minister of Justice | |
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In office 1 December 1966 – 26 March 1969 |
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| Chancellor | Kurt Georg Kiesinger |
| Preceded by | Richard Jaeger |
| Succeeded by | Horst Ehmke |
| Minister of the Interior | |
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In office 29 September 1949 – 11 October 1950 |
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| Chancellor | Konrad Adenauer |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Robert Lehr |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Gustav Walter Heinemann 23 July 1899 Schwelm, Kingdom of Prussia |
| Died | 7 July 1976 (aged 76) Essen, West Germany |
| Nationality | German |
| Political party |
Christian Social People's Service (1930–1933) Christian Democratic Union (1945–1952) All-German People's Party (1952–1957) Social Democratic Party of Germany (1957–1976) |
| Spouse(s) | Hilda Ordemann (1896–1979) |
| Children | 4 |
| Religion | Lutheran |
| Signature |  |
Gustav Walter Heinemann (23 July 1899 – 7 July 1976) was a German politician. He was Mayor of the city of Essen from 1946 to 1949, West German Minister of the Interior from 1949 to 1950, Minister of Justice from 1966 to 1969 and President of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) from 1969 to 1974.
He was named after his mother's father, a master roof tiler in the city of Barmen, with radical-democratic, left-liberal, and patriotic views. His maternal grandfather, Heinemann's great-grandfather, had taken part in the Revolution of 1848. Had s father, Otto Heinemann, a manager at the Krupp steelworks in Essen, shared his father-in-law's views. In his youth, Gustav already felt called upon to preserve and promote the liberal and democratic traditions of 1848. Throughout his life, he fought against all kinds of subservience. This attitude helped him to maintain his intellectual independence even in the face of majorities in political parties and in the Church.
Having finished his elite secondary education in 1917, Heinemann briefly became a soldier in the First World War, but his severe illness stopped him from being sent to the front.
From 1918, he studied law, economics, and history at the universities of Münster, Marburg, Munich, Göttingen, and Berlin, graduating in 1922 and passing the bar in 1926. He received a Ph.D in 1922 and a doctorate of law in 1929.
The friendships that Heinemann formed during his student years often lasted for a lifetime. Among his friends were such different people as Wilhelm Röpke, who was to become one of the leading figures of economic liberalism, Ernst Lemmer, later a trade unionist and also a Christian Democrat, and Viktor Agartz, a Marxist.
At the beginning of his career, Heinemann joined a renowned firm of solicitors in Essen. In 1929, he published a book about legal questions in the medical profession. From 1929 to 1949, he worked as a legal adviser to the Rheinische Stahlwerke in Essen, and from 1936 to 1949, he was also one of its directors.
The steelworks were considered to be essential for the war so Heinemann was not drafted into the army. He was a lecturer at the law school of the University of Cologne between 1933 and 1939. It was probably his refusal to become a member of the Nazi Party that finished his academic career.
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