As luck would have it, two hitherto unknown people start a conversation? and end up with Thomas Dehler. The liberal politician who founded the Bamberg local association of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) on May 25, 1946? together with 24 honorable citizens of the city. The American military administration had approved their application to form a party. The FDP was then able to send three party members to the city council after elections.
The two seniors who exchange ideas are lawyer Wolfgang Jans (80) and Irmgard Heider. The 82-year-old went to Jans about her inheritance settlement and started chatting. Irmgard Heider is electrified. Because: “Thomas Dehler was my father’s friend in an advisory capacity, I was his foster daughter,” says the agile lady in an interview with this editorial team.
Yes, there was even a certain family relationship: “My cousin Rudolf, with whom I grew up in the old court, married the daughter Elisabeth, and so Thomas Dehler was his father-in-law.” A “lovable person and a real Franconian!”, Is how Irmgard Heider characterizes Dehler, who has become so prominent and in whose house on Michelsberg she was always most welcome “even as a pubescent girl”. “He understood me!” Irmgard Heider is still happy, especially since her birth father was very strict.
Dehler’s daughter Elisabeth, twelve years older than Irmgard and an only child like this one, “was like a sister to me”. Sometimes the older one groaned: “My father loves you, Irmgard, much more than me!” But that was meant benevolently, the senior citizen still knows as it does today.
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In the first Adenauer cabinet
Irmgard Heider remembers the amazement with which she followed Thomas Dehler’s career. The lawyer became the President of the Bamberg Higher Regional Court, then in the first cabinet Konrad Adenauer’s Federal Minister of Justice and then Federal Chairman of the FDP and, for a time, Chairman of the Bundestag parliamentary group. As early as November 1945, the FDP was approved by Thomas Dehler in Upper and Middle Franconia.
“I liked Thomas Dehler as a person, I was not interested in his political party,” continues Irmgard Heider. Her sudden death from a heart attack on July 21, 1967, hit her very hard, she notes quietly.
In contrast, Wolfgang Jans is politically interested in the FDP. “My mother often visited the Dehlers and often said that because of all the antiques in the house it looked like the Germanic National Museum!” the lawyer laughs. Dehler’s wife Irma had this weakness for old pieces.
“Was a great role model for me”
Similar to Irmgard Heider, Wolfgang Jans never lost sight of the person and politician Thomas Dehler. “He was a great role model for me,” emphasizes Jans, who collects the rare source material about Dehler.
For several years, Wolfgang Jans was a member of the board of the FDP local association as treasurer. He has since resigned from the party “for reasons of age”. But also because “controversial, liberal veterans like Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Walter Scheel or Hildegard Hamm-Brücher have not found a successor”.
Ceremony for the 27th anniversary
According to information from FDP local chairman and city councilor Martin Pöhner, this year “there will of course also be a celebration of the 75th anniversary” if the corona situation allows it. That is currently still open.
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