100th birthday of Thomas Dehler - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1997 - 110 Pfennig

Thomas Dehler was born on December 14, 1897 in Lichtenfels in Upper Franconia, studied law and received his doctorate in 1920 in Würzburg. The acquaintance with Theodor Heuss showed him the way to liberalism. In the Third Reich, Dehler, married to a Jewish woman, faced violent attacks. He belonged to a resistance group and was there liaison man to Bavaria. In June 1945, the US military government appointed him district administrator in Bamberg, 1946 to the Attorney General. He was co-founder of the Bavarian F.D.P. and became its first state chairman from 1946 to 1956. In June 1946 he was elected for the F.D.P in the Constituent Assembly of Bavaria and 1948 in the Parliamentary Council. From 1949 until his death he was a member of the German Bundestag. Dehler was appointed Federal Minister of Justice in the first Cabinet Adenauer and earned there great merit in the reconstruction of the rule of law. In the meantime, his interest in foreign and German politics became more and more apparent. He believed in the policy of Adenauer, the unconditional integration of the West, to recognize a conscious abandonment of the unity of Germany, whose restoration seemed to him the first task and "sacred duty" of German politics. Dehler had the F.D.P. given a sharp profile in Germany policy, but it was he who was the F.D.P. led to the opposition. He died on July 21, 1967 in Streitberg in the Franconian Switzerland. (Text: G. Meuschel, Thomas Dehler Foundation, Munich)