Diether Posser (9 March 1922 in

Essen Essen () is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dortmund, as well as ...

– 9 January 2010 in Essen) was a German

politician A politician is a person who participates in Public policy, policy-making processes, usually holding an elective position in government. Politicians represent the people, make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles ...

, representative of the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Form ...

Life

During his childhood in Essen he was influenced by the

Lutheran Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

church. After serving in the military for the required time Posser studied law and became a lawyer in 1951. In 1952 he founded, with the former Secretary of the Interior

Gustav Heinemann Gustav Walter Heinemann (; 23 July 1899 – 7 July 1976) was a German politician who was President of West Germany from 1969 to 1974. He served as mayor of Essen from 1946 to 1949, West German Minister of the Interior from 1949 to 1950, and Mini ...

(previously of the CDU), Hans Bodensteiner (from the

CSU CSU may refer to: Universities and university systems United States * Columbia Southern University, in Orange Beach, Alabama * California State University system * Colorado State University, in Fort Collins, Colorado * Connecticut State Univers ...

), Thea Arnold, Helene Wessel (both from the

Zentrumspartei The Centre Party (, Z), officially the German Centre Party (, DZP) and also known in English as the Catholic Centre Party, is a Christian democracy, Christian democratic political party in Germany. It was most influential in the German Empire a ...

), Hermann Etzel ( Bayernpartei), and the future President

Johannes Rau Johannes Rau (; 16 January 193127 January 2006) was a German politician who served as President of Germany from 1999 to 2004. A member of the Social Democratic Party, he previously served as the Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia fro ...

the pacifist All-German People's Party, of which he was made General Secretary after the 1953 resignation of Bodensteiner. After the party's collapse in 1957, he became a member of the SPD, for whom he joined the

Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia The Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia is the state parliament (''Landtag'') of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which convenes in the state capital of Düsseldorf, in the eastern part of the district of Düsseldorf-Hafen, Hafen ...

in 1966. In 1968 he was named the Minister for Federal Affairs. In 1972 he switched to the Judicial Department, before he became Finance Minister in 1978. He held this position until 1988 in the

second The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of U ...

and

third Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', i.e., the third in a series of fractional parts in a sexagesimal number system Places * 3rd Street (di ...

cabinets of President

. Posser was the Godfather of actor Diether Krebs.

Works

* "Rapallo, nicht Tauroggen", in ''Stimme der Gemeinde'', Issue 4, 1954, Page 87. * "Politik ohne Solidarität"'','' in ''Gesamtdeutsche Rundschau'', Issue 24, 1955. * ''Anwalt im Kalten Krieg. Ein Stück deutscher Geschichte in politischen Prozessen 1951–1968''. Munich: C. Bertelsmann Verlag, 1991; (und weitere Auflagen). * "Gustav Heinemann", in: ''Protestantische Profile. Lebensbilder aus fünf Jahrhunderten'', ed. by Klaus Scholder and Dieter Kleinmann, Königstein/Ts. 1983, S.382–396. * "Die Hauptsache ist, daß die Hauptsache die Hauptsache bleibt", in: ''Begegnungen mit Wilhelm Busch'', ed. by Karl-Heinz Ehring and Ulrich Parzany, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1997, S.67–71.

External links

*
Diether Posser's obituary

References

1922 births 2010 deaths Politicians from Essen Politicians from the Rhine Province German Protestants Lutheran pacifists All-German People's Party politicians Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians 20th-century Lutherans {{Germany-SPD-politician-stub

Life

Works

See also

External links

References