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Information bulletin
(June 1951)
Who's who in the federal cabinet, pp. [36]-42
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Page 40
HEINRICH HELLWEGL. encourage grain-growing: he sees German agricultural future in dairy products and eggs. Says he: "The farmer must fertilize his brain as well as his field." Asked if there is any chance of unifying small, un- economic strip farms into larger units, Minister Niklas said: "At present we have no right to do any more than recommend such action to the people involved." Labor Minister Anton Storch Anton Storch, (CDU), Minister of Labor, sits between the unions and management on labor problems, including the currently controversial question of co-determination (Mit- bestimmungsrecht). Carpenter Storch got his start early in Catholic trade union work, advancing through the woodworkers' union to important posts in the combined trade union movement. Under the Nazis and their "Labor Front," Mr. Storch had to shift to selling insurance, but in 1945 he returned to his old work, helping to reorganize the union administration. Local and state politics had no charm for former air raid warden Storch in the first years after the war. His success- ful campaign as CDU Bundestag candidate from Osna- brueck, in Lower Saxony, was his first venture into the political arena. Little more than a month later Chancellor Adenauer named the long-time labor leader to the laboi post in the first Bonn cabinet. Refugee Affairs Minister Hans Lukaschek Hans Lukaschek, Minister for Refugee Affairs and co- founder of the CDU, is himself a refugee from the territory beyond the Oder-Neisse. Kicked out of office as Upper Silesian president by the Nazis, Breslau lawyer Lukaschek kept alive, joined anti-Nazi conspirators. Arrested after the unsuccessful July 20 coup in 1944 and confined in Concentration Camp Ravensbrueck, he moved after liberation to Cologne, where he helped ad- minister the Soforthilfe (Immediate Assistance Fund) for refugees. As a refugee in a non-refugee party, Mr. Luka- schek has a hard row to hoe between his economy-minded INFORMATION BULLETIN 40 West German CDU colleagues and the loud demands of penniless refugees. Question: What about emigration as a means of easing the refugee problem in the Federal Republic? Answer: "Emigration on a large scale can only be carried out if the costs of travel are guaranteed and as- surances provided that the emigrants will not meet with disaster or be unable to make a living in their new country. However, I feel that money spent to enable German refugees to start a new life here in the Federal Republic brings in better returns in every way than the same amount spent on emigration. "Plans exist for settling in France German peasant families which have lived for generations in southeast Europe. The government is favorably disposed toward this, since much experience can be gained on the general possibilities of emigration. "However, a more urgent task is to do everything possi- ble to integrate the expellees in West Germany." Housing Minister Eberhard Wildermuth Eberhard Wildermuth, (FDP), Minister for Housing and Reconstruction, was a specialist in low-cost housing in the Weimar Republic. His cabinet job? To get a low-cost roof over the heads of thousands of victims of Hitler's war, the bombed-out families and refugees. Last year former infantry officer Wildermuth helped German builders reach a world record: 7.5 dwellings per 1,000 inhabitants. This year he hopes to get the last families out of unhealthy temporary shelter in damp cellars and flimsy barracks. In order to get them out faster, Mr. Wil- dermuth plans 100,000 half-price, easily built, two and three room apartment projects, which currently carry the unappealing name of "austerity apartments." It is rumor- ed that Minister Wildermuth will pay DM 100 ($23.80) cash for a better name. Asked if currently rising building costs and shortages of materials are endangering the housing program, Min- ister Wildermuth said: "These difficulties, both result- ing from the coal shortage, raise problems for us. I hope, however, that we can build 350,000 houses again this JUNE 1951 HANS SCHUBERTH.
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