Alfons Goppel

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Alfons Goppel
Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F014898-0006, Alfons Goppel.jpg
Alfons Goppel in 1963
Minister President of Bavaria
In office
1962–1978
Preceded by Hans Ehard
Succeeded by Franz Josef Strauss
Minister of the Interior
In office
1958–1962
Personal details
Born (1905-10-01)1 October 1905
Reinhausen
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Johannesberg
Nationality German
Political party CSU
Spouse(s) Gertrud Wittenbrink
Children 6
Occupation Lawyer
Religion Roman Catholicism

Alfons Goppel (1 October 1905 in Reinhausen, near Regensburg - 24 December 1991 in Johannesberg, near Aschaffenburg) was a German politician of the CSU party and Prime Minister of Bavaria (1962–1978).

Life

Alfons Goppel was born in 1905 as one of nine children of the baker Ludwig Goppel and his wife Barbara.

He married Gertrud Wittenbrink in 1935 and together they had six sons.

Goppel studied law in Munich from 1925 to 1929 and, after graduating, moved back to Regensburg, where he became a lawyer. He joined the state prosecutors office in 1934 and was posted to Mainburg, Kaiserslautern and finally Aschaffenburg. He joined the conservative Bavarian People's Party in 1930 and was a member until the party's self-dissolution in November 1933. He joined the SA (1933) and the NSDAP (1937) in the following years.

He took part in the campaigns in France and Russia in the German Wehrmacht during the Second World War and later became an instructor at the Infanterieschule Döberitz, near Berlin, a trainings camp of the German army.

Returning from the war, he became an official at the city of Aschaffenburg, responsible for housing and refugees. He was elected to the Bavarian Landtag in October 1947 but barred from taking up his seat due to his political past. He, unsuccessfully, campaigned for the Landtag in 1950 again, became second mayor of Aschaffenburg in 1952 and finally, in 1954, was elected to the Landtag and permitted to take up his seat. He remained in the Bavarian parliament until 1978, when he gave it up to become a member of the European Parliament.

He unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Würzburg in 1956 and became an under secretary in the Bavarian Ministry of Justice the year after. He was Bavarian Minister of the Interior (1958–1962) and prime minister of Bavaria from 11 December 1962 to 7 November 1978, serving as President of the Bundesrat in 1972/73. In 1974 he gained the highest election victory for the CSU in Bavarian history with 62.1% of the votes.

From 1979 to 1984 he was a member of the European Parliament, as such being part of the first freely elected group of MPs in 1979.[1]

One of his sons, Thomas Goppel, later served as Minister of Science, Research and the Arts (2003–2008).

The Alfons-Goppel-Stiftung (Alfons Goppel Foundation), formed in 1980 and named after him, supports needy children in third-world countries.

Honors

External links

Sources

References

File:2005-10-StoiberGoppel800.jpg
A street in Munich was named after him in 2005
Political offices
Preceded by Prime Minister of Bavaria
1962 – 1978
Succeeded by
Franz Josef Strauss

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