Hans-Ulrich Klose

Hans-Ulrich Klose (born 14 June 1937) is a German politician from the Social Democratic Party and a former member of the German Federal parliament (German: Bundestag). Klose was the First Mayor (German: Erster Bürgermeister) of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg from 1974 up to 1981, serving as President of the Bundesrat in 1979/80.

Early life

Klose was born in Breslau (now better known under its Polish name Wrocław), Province of Lower Silesia. After the end of the World War II, Klose's family fled from Breslau and moved to Bielefeld. In 1957 he received his high-school diploma and started studying law at the universities of Freiburg and Hamburg. In 1961 he passed the First, in 1965 the Second Legal State Examination, and started working as a lawyer in Hamburg.

Political career

After joining the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 1964, he became a member of the Hamburg Parliament (Hamburgische Bürgerschaft) in 1970, where he was vice chairman of his faction. Two years later he became first chairman of the SPD faction. In October 1973, Klose succeeded Heinz Ruhnau as minister of the interior of Hamburg. Only a year later, on 12 November 1974 Hans-Ulrich Klose became First Mayor (Erster Bürgermeister) of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg at the age of 37. After a party internal argument about a near nuclear powerplant in Brokdorf, he resigned from his office on 25 May 1981.

In 1983 Klose was elected as a member of the German parliament, the Bundestag, for the SPD. From 1987 to 1991 he was treasurer of his party (German: Bundesschatzmeister). From 1991 to 1994 he became the leader of SPD group in the Bundestag, and in this position also leader of the opposition. He quit this job in 1994, to make room for the SPD candidate for German chancellor at that time, Rudolf Scharping. Instead he was elected one of the vice presidents of the German Bundestag the same year.

In 1998 Klose became president of the parliament's foreign policy committee; since 2002 he's been its vice president, and since January 2003 Klose has also been president of the parliamentary group for German-American affairs.

On 16 March 2010, Germany's Minister for Foreign Affairs Guido Westerwelle appointed Klose to succeed Karsten Voigt as the government's coordinator for German-American affairs, a rare case of a senior political appointment not being given to a member of the governing party .

In March 2013 the Congressional Study Group on Germany presented him with the inaugural International Statesmanship Award in appreciation “for his longstanding service to strengthening the US-German relationship”.

Personal life

Since 1992 Hans-Ulrich Klose has been married to his third wife, a physician. He has two daughters and two sons from his first two marriages.

References

• Biography (German)

External links

• Hans-Ulrich Klose in the German National Library catalogue
• Official site (German)
• German Parliament site (German)
• Personal data sheet