Kurt Georg Kiesinger

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. Having joined the Nazi Party in 1933, he remained a largely inactive member. To avoid conscription, in 1940 a former student of his helped having him appointed to the broadcast policy department of the Foreign Office by Joachim von Ribbentrop, and he 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 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.