- Hans Apel
Hans Eberhard Apel (b.
February 25 ,1932 inHamburg ) is a Germanpolitician and a member of theSocial Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). From 1972-1974 he was Parliamentary State Secretary to theForeign Minister . From 1974-1978 he was theMinister of Finance and from 1978-1982 he was theMinister of Defense .Education and career
After completing his
Abitur (roughly equivalent to graduating high school) in 1954 inHamburg , he served anapprenticeship as an import and export businessman, in Hamburg. After completing his apprenticeship he went to university, where he studiedEconomics . In 1960 he was awarded adoctorate in Political Science. From 1958-1961 he was the Secretary of the Socialist Group in theEuropean Parliament . In 1962 he became a civil servant at the European Parliament, where he served as Department Head responsible for Economics, Finance and Transport. In 1993 he was appointed an honorary professor of Economics at theUniversity of Rostock .Family
Dr. Apel has been married to Ingrid Apel since 1956. They have two children.
Party Work
Dr. Apel joined the SPD in 1955. From 1970 to 1988 he was a member of the National Executive (Bundesvorstand) of the SPD, and from 1986 to 1988 he was also a member of the Executive Board (Präsidium).
As an elected representative
From 1965 until 1990 Dr. Apel was a member of the German
Bundestag . In 1969 he was deputy chairman of the SPD parliamentary group and again in 1983, after the new elections, until 1988.Government Positions
In 1972 Dr. Apel was appointed Parliamentary State Secretary for European Questions at the German Foreign Office. In 1974 he was appointed Finance Minister in the government of
Helmut Schmidt . After thecabinet reshuffle of 1978, he was put in charge of the Ministry of Defense. He left government on1982-10-01 , afterHelmut Kohl became Bundeskanzler.In 1985 he ran as the top candidate for the SPD in Berlin, which implied standing as mayor of Berlin, but lost to the CDU candidate.
Religion
Dr. Apel currently spends his time speaking more about religion than politics. In 2004 he was awarded the
Walter Künneth Prize by the "Kirchliche Sammlung um Bibel und Bekenntnis in Bayern" (the Ecclesiastical Assembly for theBible and Commitment in Bavaria), a conservativeLutheran organization. The prize, named after the Germantheologian ,Walter Künneth , was awarded principally for Apel's book "Volkskirche ohne Volk" (People's Church without a People), in which he criticizes the "rampant modernism" of today's Evangelical Church, which was also his reason for leaving theNorth Elbian Evangelical Church and joining theIndependent Evangelical-Lutheran Church .ee also
*
List of German finance ministers External links
* [http://www.bmvg.de/portal/a/bmvg/kcxml/04_Sj9SPykssy0xPLMnMz0vM0Y_QjzKLt4w3cjcFSYGZpub6kTAxX4_83FT9oNQ8fW_9AP2C3IhyR0dFRQDKctTT/delta/base64xml/L3dJdyEvd0ZNQUFzQUMvNElVRS82XzlfNVJO| Information on Dr. Apel from the German Ministry of Defense (English)]
Persondata
NAME = Apel, Hans Eberhard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
SHORT DESCRIPTION = German politician
DATE OF BIRTH =February 25 ,1932
PLACE OF BIRTH = Hamburg, Germany
DATE OF DEATH =
PLACE OF DEATH =
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