Heinrich Jasper

Heinrich Jasper (21 August 1875 – 19 February 1945) was a German politician (SPD). During the 1920s he served three terms as regional prime minister (Ministerpräsident) of the Free State of Brunswick. He died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Heinrich Jasper was born in Dingelbe, a village in the countryside to the southeast of Hanover. His father, Carl August Jasper (1822-1898), was a wealthy tenant farmer. He attended secondary school (Gymnasium in nearby Hildesheim till 1886 when his parents divorced and his father relocated to Braunschweig, where Jasper successfully completed his schooling at the . He went on to study jurisprudence at Munich, Leipzig and Berlin. He received his doctorate in 1900 and returned to Braunschweig as a referendary (trainee lawyer), setting up his own legal practice in 1902. He joined the Social Democratic Party ("Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands" / SPD). The ban on SPD participation in elections had been lifted in 1890, but the party was not, at this stage, considered mainstream by members of the political class: Jasper's decision to join it in 1902 was an unusual one for a man from his background. Within the party locally he stood out both on account of his education and because he was a good speaker. In 1909 he was the first Social Democrat elected to the .

Between 1903 and 1933 Jasper represented the SPD as a Braunschweig city councillor. In July 1915 he went off to serve in the war, having risen to the rank of a by the time he arrived home from the front on 11 November 1918.

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