Kurt Georg Kiesinger (German: [ˈkʊʁt ˈɡeːɔʁk ˈkiːzɪŋɐ]; 6 April 1904 – 9 March 1988) was a German politician and lawyer who served as the chancellor of West Germany from 1 December 1966 to 21 October 1969. Before he became chancellor, he served as Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg from 1958 to 1966 and as President of the Bundesrat from 1962 to 1963. He was chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1967 to 1971.
Kiesinger passed his second state examination in October 1934 and worked as a lawyer at Berlin's Kammergericht and a private law teacher (Repetitor) from 1935 to 1940. He had joined the Nazi Party in 1933, but remained a largely inactive member. To avoid conscription, in 1940 he was appointed to the broadcast policy department of the Foreign Office by Joachim von Ribbentrop, and became deputy head of the broadcasting and propaganda departments in 1942. In 1946, he became a member of the Christian Democratic Union. He was elected to the Bundestag in 1949, and was a member of the Bundestag until 1958 and again from 1969 to 1980. He left federal politics for eight years (from 1958 to 1966) to serve as Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg, and subsequently became chancellor by forming a grand coalition with Willy Brandt's Social Democratic Party (SPD).
Kiesinger was considered an outstanding orator and mediator, and was dubbed "King Silver Tongue". He was an author of poetry and various books, and founded the universities of Konstanz and Ulm as Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg. Kiesinger is also considered controversial, mainly due to his affiliation and work with the Nazis. The student movement in particular, but also other sections of the population, saw Kiesinger as a politician who embodied the inadequacy of Germans' coming to terms with the past.
Kurt Georg Kiesinger was born in Ebingen, Kingdom of Württemberg (now Albstadt, Baden-Württemberg). His father was a commercial clerk in companies engaged in the local textile industry. Kiesinger was baptised Catholic because his mother was Catholic, though his father was Protestant. His mother died six months after he was born. After a year, his father remarried to Karoline Victoria Pfaff. His maternal grandmother exerted a strong influence on Kiesinger and encouraged him, while both his father and his stepmother were indifferent to his advancement. They had seven children, of whom Kiesinger's half-sister Maria died a year after she was born. Pfaff was also a Catholic. Kiesinger was therefore shaped by both denominations and later referred to himself as a "Protestant Catholic". Politically, Kiesinger grew up in a liberal, democratically minded milieu. His father subscribed to a liberal newspaper.
After visiting a Catholic primary school, Kiesinger entered the only secondary school in Ebingen, from which he graduated in 1919 as a slightly above-average student. Since he wanted to advance but was financially constrained, he only had the option of becoming a priest or a teacher. Since he did not desire to become the former, he entered the Catholic seminary in Rottweil to become the latter, which intended a six-year education. During this period, he briefly busied himself with poetry. He published poems in the newspaper Neues Albblatt and other papers, which were partially political in nature. The political poems dealt, among other things, with the situation of the fledgling Weimar Republic. In the poem Jahreswende ("Turn of the Year"), Kiesinger attacked the "enemies" of Germany, which were "tearing at the corners of the Reich" and had burdened it with "billions in debt" through the Treaty of Versailles. He did not make it clear whether he had realised the military defeat of the German Empire in World War I. Later, Kiesinger wrote a poetry collection called Wallfahrt zu Gott ("Pilgrimage to God"), which included 26 poems, that was published by his patron Friedrich Haux.
His father could only finance the tuition fees demanded by the seminary until the hyperinflation of 1923, after which Kiesinger briefly received a scholarship. During the summer breaks, he worked in a textile factory to finance his studies, which belonged to Friedrich Haux, a liberal entrepreneur. Haux began to financially support Kiesinger, which allowed Kiesinger to graduate from the seminary in 1925. This counted only as a partial Abitur; under a special clause in force at the University of Tübingen, he was able to study philosophy and history without the full Abitur.
In April 1925, the 21-year old Kiesinger would vote in the German presidential election for the first time. He did not vote for the democratic candidate, Wilhelm Marx of the Centre Party, but rather for Paul von Hindenburg. According to Gassert's estimate, Kiesinger at this point identified himself with the national conservative camp, "perhaps again to prove his independence".
Since Kiesinger was not satisfied with becoming a teacher, he made an effort to attain the Abitur after all. As a result of the German revolution of 1918–1919, this became possible at the University of Tübingen, the preparatory classes for which being hosted at the university. Kiesinger attended, besides the mandatory preparatory classes, lectures in other fields, such as those of historian Johannes Haller, who was an ardent opponent of the Weimar Republic and an early supporter of Nazism. In October 1926, Kiesinger passed the external Abitur examination at a Gymnasium in Tübingen.
Legal career during the Weimar Republic
Kiesinger, who desired to live in a major city, went to study law at the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin in 1926. In Berlin, he entered into the (couleur wearing) Roman Catholic corporation KStV Askania-Burgundia Berlin, after having already been a member of the (also Catholic) KStV Alamannia Tübingen during his time in Tübingen from 1925 onward. Although the Askania wore couleur, they did not engage in the traditional fencing, were positive towards democracy and supported the Weimar Republic. The corporation regularly held lecture events, during which political, social and literary topics were discussed. These were organised by newly engaged Kiesinger. He was a good orator and held several of these lectures. Already in the summer of 1927, he was elected the corporation's Senior (leader).
Throughout the many social events the Askania organised, Kiesinger met many prominent Catholic and democratic politicians, who were primarily members of the Centre Party and former active members of the corporation. Among these were the former presidential candidate and chancellor Wilhelm Marx, the mayor of Cologne Konrad Adenauer, the former minister of justice Erich Emminger, the former Prussian secretary of state Aloys Lammers, his brother Clemens Lammers and the politician Hermann Pünder. Several of the former active members were, however, opponents of the Weimar Republic and sympathised with Nazism. One of the major influences on the younger members of the corporation was the devout, conservative Catholic and professor of history Martin Spahn, who was a member of the Centre Party until 1921, switching to the anti-democratic German National People's Party (DNVP) and later tentatively supporting Nazism towards the end of the Weimar Republic. Spahn is considered an important link between political Catholicism and Nazism in Germany.
In 1931, Kiesinger passed his first state examination with very good results. Thus, in 1931, he became an Alter Herr (i.e. non-active member) of his corporation. Afterwards, he began his preparatory service (Referendariat) at the Amtsgericht Köpenick. Since Friedrich Haux had died by this time, he had to search for a new source of income, since the preparatory service of legal trainees at this time was unpaid. Since he was very knowledgeable about the law, he began working as a private law teacher (Repetitor), preparing law students for the first state examination. He held his classes either before his service at the Amtsgericht in the morning or afterwards in the evening.