Kai-Uwe von Hassel

Kai-Uwe von Hassel
von Hassel in 1966
President of the Bundestag
In office 5 February 1969 – 13 December 1972
Preceded by	Eugen Gerstenmaier
Succeeded by	Annemarie Renger
Minister for Displaced Persons, Refugees and War Victims
In office 1 December 1966 – 5 February 1969
Chancellor	Kurt Georg Kiesinger
Preceded by	Johann Baptist Gradl
Succeeded by	Heinrich Windelen
Minister of Defence
In office 9 January 1963 – 1 December 1966
Chancellor	Konrad Adenauer Ludwig Erhard
Preceded by	Franz Josef Strauß
Succeeded by	Gerhard Schröder
Minister-President of Schleswig-Holstein
In office 11 October 1954 – 7 January 1963
Deputy	Hans-Adolf Asbach Carl-Anton Schaefer Bernhard Leverenz Helmut Lemke
Preceded by	Friedrich Wilhelm Lübke
Succeeded by	Helmut Lemke
President of the Bundesrat
In office 7 September 1955 – 6 September 1956
First Vice President	Peter Altmeier
Preceded by	Peter Altmeier
Succeeded by	Kurt Sieveking
Parliamentary constituencies Member of the Bundestag for Schleswig-Holstein In office 19 October 1965 – 4 November 1980 Preceded by Constituency established Succeeded by Kurt Leuschner Constituency Steinburg – Dithmarschen Süd In office 6 October 1953 – 4 November 1954 Preceded by Johannes Hagge Succeeded by Heinrich Reichold Constituency Schleswig – Eckernförde Member of the Landtag of Schleswig-Holstein In office 27 October 1958 – 2 October 1965 Preceded by Hanno Schmidt Succeeded by Hans Alwin Ketels Constituency Flensburg-West In office 11 October 1954 – 27 October 1958 Preceded by Constituency established Succeeded by Jürgen Thee Constituency Schleswig In office 7 August 1950 – 11 October 1954 Preceded by Peter Jensen Succeeded by Peter Jensen Constituency Flensburg-Land-West
Personal details
Born	(1913-04-21)21 April 1913 Gare, German East Africa, German Empire (now Tanga Region, Tanzania)
Died	8 May 1997(1997-05-08) (aged 84) Aachen, Germany
Political party	Christian Democratic Union (1946–1997)
Children	3

Kai-Uwe von Hassel (21 April 1913 – 8 May 1997) was a German politician from Schleswig-Holstein associated with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He served as Minister President of Schleswig-Holstein from 1954 to 1963, as Federal Minister of Defence from 1963 to 1966, and as Federal Minister for Displaced Persons, Refugees and War Victims from 1966 to 1969. From 1969 to 1972 he was the fourth president of the Bundestag. Having previously served as President of the Bundesrat in his capacity as Minister-President from 1955 to 1956, he is (as of 2025) the only person to have presided over both of the legislative constitutional bodies of the federal republic.

Hassel was born in Gare, German East Africa (now in Lushoto, Tanga Region, Tanzania), where his father Theodor von Hassel (1868–1935) had served as a Schutztruppe officer. After the First World War, the Hassel family was banished from Tanganyika by the British mandate administration and settled in Glücksburg, Schleswig-Holstein. Hassel took his Abitur school-leaving exam in 1933, trained as an agribusiness merchant, and returned to the Tanganyika Territory in 1935. At the beginning of the Second World War he was interned in Dar es Salaam by the British authorities and was again banished to Germany. Drafted into the Wehrmacht armed forces, he served as an interpreter for the Abwehr military intelligence organisation under Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and was decorated with the Iron Cross (2nd Class).

After the war, Hassel joined the newly established Christian Democrat party in the Flensburg district and from 1947 served as mayor of Glücksburg. In 1950 he became a member of the Schleswig-Holstein legislature, and at the 1953 federal election a member of the German Bundestag.

On 11 October 1954 Hassel assumed the office of a Minister-President of Schleswig-Holstein. From 1955–1956, he was President of the German Bundesrat. He was closely associated with Ludwig Erhard's two Chancellorships, serving as Minister of Defense from 9 January 1963 to 1 December 1966. In 1963 he secretly asked the United States to supply the Bundeswehr with chemical weapons.^[1] He then served in Kurt Georg Kiesinger's cabinet from 1 December 1966 to 21 October 1969 as Minister of Displaced Persons, Refugees, and War Victims. His son Joachim von Hassel, a naval aviator and Oberleutnant zur See, was killed in a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter crash on 10 March 1970.

Following his service in the government, Hassel was president of the Bundestag from 5 February 1969 to 13 December 1972, having been elected when the previous president, Eugen Gerstenmaier, resigned during a financial scandal. In 1979, he was elected to the European Parliament and served for one term, retiring in 1984. He died aged 84, when he suffered a heart attack during the Charlemagne Award ceremony in the Aachen city hall in 1997.

• Michael F. Feldkamp (ed.), Der Bundestagspräsident. Amt – Funktion – Person. 16. Wahlperiode, München 2007, ISBN 978-3-7892-8201-0

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kai-Uwe von Hassel.

• Entry at the Federal Ministry of Defence website
• Von Hassels Afrika Korps in Tanzania