Josef Stingl
Josef Stingl | |
---|---|
Born | Germany | 19 March 1919
Died | 19 March 2004 | (aged 85)
Occupation(s) | Fighter pilot Construction worker Politician President of the BA |
Spouse(s) | 1. Dorothea Behmke (who predeceased him) 2. ______ |
Children | 2 |
Parent(s) | Georg Stigl Amalie Hüttl |
Josef Stingl (19 March 1919 – 19 March 2004) was a German politician who served as the longstanding president of the Bundesanstalt für Arbeit (West German [National] Employment Agency) from 1968 to 1984. By that time he had already established himself as a national politician as a member of the CDU and, after he relocated to Munich, the CSU). From 1953 to 1968, he served as a member of the Bundestag (West German parliament). There, he took a particular interest in pensions and labour law.[1][2][3]
Life
Provenance and early years
Stingl was born in
War years
In December 1938 Stingl was conscripted as a
Joseph Stingl married Dorothea Behmke in 1943: the marriage produced two recorded children.[4]
New beginnings in Berlin
With much of the German capital reduced to rubble, as the rubble was cleared there was no shortage of building work, and it was as a building worker that Stingl initially supported his family. In 1947 he switched to a management/administrative position with a building business. Between 1948 and 1952 he was employed by a major home-building firm.
Politics
Josef Stingl joined the new
Within the party Stingl was always seen as representative of the party's "workers' wing", reflecting his background as the son of an artisan and as a man who had only been able to obtain a university degree by earning money by day and studying in the evenings. He would always be a proponent of social equality.[1]
Bundestag
Josef Stingl was elected a member of the West German Bundestag in September 1953 as one 22 members representing the territory becoming known as West Berlin. 6 of the 22 represented the CDU. He remained a Bundestag member without a break till 1968. Because of the complexities introduced by the semi-detached constitutional relationship between West Berlain and West Germany, there were, before 1990, no directly elected Bundestag members from Berlin. Stingl and his five party colleagues were accordingly electred because their names appeared on the party list for Berlin and then secured sufficient votes to earn the right (in 1953) for the top six candidates on the party list to be elected. Stingl was included on the candidate list in the expectation that he would contribute on the party's behalf, primarily, on matters of social policy. His fellow Berlin member, Ernst Schellenberg of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) had already made a name for himself in respect of the same set of issues, and Stingl, on his election, succeeded in ensuring that social policy did not remain an SPD monopoly. Representing Berlin meant Stingl did not enjoy full voting rights in the West German Bundestag, but he nevertheless made 154 contributions in the parliament's plenary sessions, and he was not without influence, rapidly establishing himself as one of the CDU's leading experts on social policy.[4]
In 1957 Stingl formally became a member of the parliamentary executive of the CDU/CSU group in the Bundestag, having by this time already attended a number of its meetings "by invitation". He was also a full (or in some cases alternating) member of various parliamentary committees. At the start of 1966 he became deputy chair of the parliamentary committee on social policy. Within the parliamentary group, between 1962 and his resignation from the Bundestag in 1968, he chaired the CDU/CSU working group on Social Policy ("Arbeitskreis IV"). He continued to be closely involved in party policy making on these matters, notably in respect of pension reforms, even after 1968.[4]
Bundesanstalt für Arbeit
Between 2 May 1968 and 30 March 1984 Josef Stingl served as president of the Bundesanstalt für Arbeit (West German [National] Employment Agency ).[a] During his tenure the organisation's national head office in Nuremberg was built and many of the smaller local "Arbeitsamt" offices were merged. It was a reflection of the length of his tenure that during the 1970s the expression "Ich arbeite bei Firma Stingl" ("I work for the Stingl company") became used as an ironic euphemism for "Ich bin arbeitslos" ("I am unemployed").[5][6] At a time when "media political correctness" was not yet ubiquitous, Josef Stingl, who was a more than averagely rotund gentleman, was also referred to as "der Bundesunke" (loosely, "the national toad") in reference to his monthly media appearances to announce the deteriorating West German unemployment statistics.[2][7]
Away from the frontline
Between 1983 and 1990 Stingl took a post as an honorary (though apparently not entirely inactive) professor at the University of Bamberg where he was assigned to the department of "professional further education" ("Berufliche Weiterbildung").[8] He did not go quietly into retirement. Instead he increased his involvement with the church and established himself as a leading spokesman for the victims (and their families) of ethnic cleansing from the "Sudetenland" during 1944/45. He was committed to dialogue and reconciliation between the descendants of the (former) Sudeten Germans and of the Czechs who had taken their place in those territories.[9]
After the death of his first wife Josef Stingl remarried and moved to Leutesdorf (downriver from Koblenz). During his final years he suffered from serious heart disease. He died at Leutesdorf on his eighty-fifth birthday.[10]
Awards and honours
- 1942: Honour Goblet of the Air Force
- 1943: German Cross in Gold
- 1971: Bavarian Order of Merit
- 1972: Order of Merit of the Italian Republic ("Grande Ufficiale")
- 1974: Order of St. Gregory the Great ("Commendatore con placca")
- 1974: Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Grand Cross
- 1976: Honorary senator: University of Mannheim
- 1979: Honorary doctor: German University of Administrative Sciences, Speyer
- 1974: Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Grand Cross with star
- 1982: Bavarian State Medal for Social Services
- 1984: Bishop Heinrich Braun prize
- 1984: Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Grand Cross with star and shoulder sash
- 1984: Order of St. Gregory the Great ("Cavaliere di gran croce")
- 1984: European Karl's Prize of the Sudeten Homeland Society
Notes
- ^ subsequently reconfigured and rebranded as the "Bundesagentur für Arbeit"
References
- ^ a b c d Wolfgang Tischner; Stefan Marx (18 March 1919). "Josef Stingl". Sozialpolitiker, Honorarprofessor Dr. h. c. 19. März 1919 Maria-Kulm/Egerland 19. März 2004 Leutesdorf/Rhein. Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V., Berlin. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
- ^ a b "Der Stingl Josef wird's schon richten". Der Spiegel (online). 3 April 1978. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
- ^ a b c "Josef Stingl". deutscher Sozialpolitiker; Präsident der Bundesanstalt für Arbeit (1968-1984); CSU. Munzinger Archiv GmbH, Ravensburg. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
- ^ )
- ^ "Hilflose, schuldig gesprochene Nummer". Innenansichten aus der Arbeitslosigkeit Bericht eines Betroffenen*. Die Zeit (online). 12 April 1985. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
- ^ "Frau Seiler-Albring" [in German] (20 January 1984). "Deutscher Bundestag: Stenographischer Bericht 48. Sitzung Bonn" (PDF). Plenarprotokoll 10/48. p. 3470. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
- ^ Dieter Fiel (16 March 1979). "In sieben Minuten ist alles vorbei". Die schwerfällige Bürokratie in deutschen Arbeitsämtern läßt wenig Zeit für die wichtigen Aufgaben. Die Zeit (online). Retrieved 29 May 2019.
- ^ "Josef Stingl: *19. März 1919, Maria Kulm – †19. März 2004, Leutesdorf". Ackermann-Gemeinde e.V., München. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
- ^ Dr. Rudolf Hilf (27 March 2004). "Zum Tod von Josef Sting" (PDF). Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft, Landesgruppe Bayern e.V., München. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
- ^ "Trauer um Josef Stingl". Hamburger Abendblatt. 20 March 2004. Retrieved 29 May 2019.