Wilhelm Kaisen

Wilhelm Kaisen
President of the Senate and Mayor of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen
In office 1 August 1945 – 17 July 1965
Deputy	Jules Eberhard Noltenius Adolf Ehlers Willy Dehnkamp
Preceded by	Erich Vagts
Succeeded by	Willy Dehnkamp
Personal details
Born	22 May 1887 Hamburg, German Empire
Died	19 December 1979 (aged 92) Bremen, West Germany
Political party	Social Democratic Party
Spouse(s)	Helene Kaisen
Children	4

Carl Wilhelm Kaisen (22 May 1887 – 19 December 1979) was a German politician from the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Between 1945 and 1965 he was the 2nd President of the Senate and Mayor of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. In 1958/59 he served as the 10th President of the Bundesrat. He became a symbol of the German reconstruction in Bremen after 1945.

Biography

Kaisen was born in the German city of Hamburg, and spent his youth there. His family's poverty did not allow him to visit a higher school or even receive a high school education. In 1905 he became a member of the SPD. After World War I, he moved to his wife's home city Bremen. Influenced by his family he managed to get the SPD into the parliament of Bremen (Bürgerschaft). From 1919 to 1928 he was journalist and editor-in-chief of the SPD newspaper Bremer Bürger-Zeitung. From 1920 to 1928 he was member of the Bürgerschaft. In 1928, Kaisen became the SPD Senator of Social Services in the Senate of Bremen. In March 1933, he was pressured to resign by Nazis.

Kaisen was not involved in politics during the Nazism era. He spent his time with agricultural work in the suburb of Bremen-Borgfeld.

On 1 August 1945, the US military government made Kaisen mayor of Bremen. Supported by the Liberals as well as the Communists he tried to re-establish the political and economical structures of the Weimar Republic. He was re-elected by the people of Bremen during the first free elections after the war. In July 1965, after nearly twenty years in office, he resigned as mayor.

Kaisen was very popular with the general public, but less so within the SPD itself. The decision to position Germany within the NATO led to a break with chairman of the SPD Kurt Schumacher.

Kaisen died in Bremen on 19 December 1979.

Honours

Although not well known in the rest of Germany, Wilhelm Kaisen is held in high regard in Bremen and Bremerhaven. A number of things were named in his honor:

• Wilhelm Kaisen High School in the Neustadt district
• Wilhelm Kaisen, a rescue cruiser of the Maritime Search and Rescue Service (in service from 1978 to 2012)
• Wilhelm Kaisen Bridge, the great Weser bridge in the center of the city
• A container terminal in Bremerhaven (since 1971)

There are also several streets and squares in both cities named after Kaisen and his wife. Two statues and a bust of him can be found in Bremen.

Literature

• Karl-Ludwig Sommer: Wilhelm Kaisen. Eine politische Biographie. Hrsg. von der Wilhelm-und-Helene-Kaisen-Stiftung Bremen, Verlag J. H. W. Dietz Nachf., Bonn 2000, 541 S., geb., ISBN 3-8012-0293-3
• Hans Koschnick, Hg.: Zuversicht und Beständigkeit. Wilhelm Kaisen. Eine Dokumentation. Bremen 1977. ISBN 3-87681-069-8.

Look after

• List of mayors of Bremen

External links

• Curriculum vitae of Wilhelm Kaisen on the website of the Wilhelm-Kaisen-School in Bremen