Biography
After his mother's early death, he grew up in modest circumstances with six step-siblings after his father remarried. Kiesinger attended secondary school in Ebingen and the Catholic teachers' college in Rottweil, before graduating from high school in Stuttgart. In 1925 he began studying philosophy and history in Tübingen, but dropped out after a year to study law and political science in Berlin. During his student days, Kiesinger was involved in Catholic student associations. In 1931 and 1934 he passed the first and second state examinations in law. In 1932 he married Marie-Luise Schneider.
Kiesinger was a member of the NSDAP from 1933 to 1945, from which he did not leave despite growing skepticism towards Nazi politics. Although he actually aspired to a university career, Kiesinger began working as a lawyer at the Berlin Court of Appeal and as a private law teacher from 1935 onward. In 1940 he was employed as a research scientist in the broadcasting department of the Reich Foreign Ministry. Three years later, in 1943, he was promoted to deputy department head. According to internal Nazi files, Kiesinger used his position at that time to hinder anti-Jewish actions. After the end of the war, Kiesinger served several months in prison in the Ludwigsburg internment camp. In 1948 he was admitted to the bar in Tübingen.
At the same time, he became state manager of the CDU, for which he entered the Bundestag for the first time in 1949. His brilliant rhetoric earned him the nickname "King Silvertongue." In the new German parliament he served as chairman of the Mediation Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee until 1958. As early as 1950/51 he joined the party and executive board of the CDU. Kiesinger was also a member of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe from 1950 to 1958. On December 17, 1958, Kiesinger was elected Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg by the state parliament in Stuttgart. In 1960 he formed a coalition government with the FDP, which also emerged victorious in the subsequent state elections in 1964.
As a result of the FDP's departure from the Bonn government coalition and the crisis in Ludwig Erhard's government that this triggered in autumn 1966, the CDU/CSU nominated Kurt Kiesinger as the successor to the failed Chancellor. Kiesinger formed a grand coalition with the SPD and was elected by parliament as the third Chancellor of the Federal Republic on December 1, 1966. A few months later, he succeeded Erhard as CDU party chairman. The grand coalition was able to achieve some successes internally, especially in the economic and financial areas. However, Kiesinger's time in government also saw the adoption of the controversial emergency laws, which plunged the Federal Republic into a serious crisis of credibility and its first domestic political test as part of the generational conflict and student protests well into the 1970s.
At the same time, Kiesinger initiated an initial opening towards the Eastern Bloc states in the foreign policy field in 1967/68 with the establishment of diplomatic relations with Romania and Yugoslavia as well as trade contacts with the CSSR. The Chancellor made numerous state visits not only to neighboring European states, but also to Asia, including in September 1968 to the politically controversial Iran. On the occasion of the 1969 federal election, the SPD, in alliance with the FDP, achieved a slight predominance over the Union parties. Kurt Kiesinger moved to the opposition bench in the Bundestag, where he subsequently lost increasing influence compared to the parliamentary group leader Rainer Barzel and the Rhineland-Palatinate Prime Minister Helmut Kohl.
In 1971, Kiesinger therefore decided not to run again for the party chairmanship, to which Barzel was then appointed. Although Kiesinger retained a political role in the party as honorary CDU chairman and member of the Bundestag, he was hardly at the forefront anymore. In 1980 he resigned from parliament as a result of his decision not to stand as a candidate in the federal elections. In the years that followed, Kiesinger lived largely withdrawn from the political stage. It was only in 1984 that he once again came into the limelight of public interest, on the occasion of his 80th birthday and the tributes from numerous personalities of the Federal Republic's political culture.
