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Heinrich von Brentano di Tremezzo (6 June 1904 – 14 November 1964) was a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He served as Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1955 to 1961.
Brentano was born in Offenbach am Main, the son of the Centre politician Otto von Brentano, a member of the 1919 Weimar National Assembly. The Brentano family, of Italian (Lombard) origin, had settled in the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt in the 17th century and were recognized as Hessian nobles, with close contact to important figures of the German Romanticism, including Goethe, Savigny and Arnim. He was related to famous German poets such as Clemens Brentano (1778–1842) and Bettina von Arnim (1785–1859). The author Bernard von Brentano (1901–1964) was his elder brother.
Upon his Abitur degree in 1922, Heinrich von Brentano studied jurisprudence at the University of Munich and took his first and second Staatsexamen in 1925 and 1929. He received his doctorate from the University of Giessen and from 1932 worked as a lawyer in Darmstadt, from 1943 until 1945 as a prosecutor in Hanau.
Brentano remained a bachelor throughout his life, living with his mother up to her death in 1948. In 1961, rumors circulated about his homosexuality, to which Adenauer drily replied: "He has not hit on me yet."[1]
Brentano died of cancer at the age of 60. He was buried at Waldfriedhof Darmstadt.
Political career[]
Brentano (r.) with Adenauer at a 1957 CDU party conference
After World War II, Brentano was one of the founders of the Christian Democratic Union in Hesse and became a member of the Landtag of Hesse in 1946, from 1947 as chairman of the parliamentary group.
He also attended the proceedings of the Parlamentarischer Rat assembly drafting the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany. In the federal elections of 1949, he obtained a seat in the West German Bundestag parliament by directly winning the mandate of the Bergstraße constituency. In 1952 he and other CDU MPs advocated the implementation of a plurality voting system instead of the personalized proportional representation concept, though to no avail. In the federal parliament, he served as head of the CDU/CSU faction from 1949 to 1955 and again from 1961 until his death.
A member of the European Movement Germany, the European Common Assembly and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Brentano was an important figure in the foundation of the European Economic Community (EEC).
After the Allied occupation statute had been lifted in 1955, he was appointed Foreign Minister of Germany at the suggestion of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who prior had filled the office himself. Brentano resigned when Adenauer had to form a coalition government with the Free Democratic Party (FDP) after the federal election of 1961 and had to accept the appointment of a FDP state secretary in the Foreign Office. He was succeeded by his party fellow Gerhard Schröder.
Honours[]
Grave.
Foreign honours[]
Grand Cross of the Order of Christ, Portugal (10 April 1958) [2]
Speaker:Heinrich Hellwege until 2 November 1949; until 21 December 1949; Hans Mühlenfeld until 15 March 1953; Hans-Joachim von Merkatz from 17 March 1953
Members:
Ahrens
Bahlburg (from 13 September 1951 Non-attached, from 24 January 1952 DP-Gast, from 10 September 1952 Non-attached)
Campe (from 23 January 1950, until 8 January 1952)
(from 22 March 1952)
(from 19 January 1950 Non-attached, from 28 March 1950 DRP-Gast, from 16 September 1950 Non-attached, from 29 April 1953 WAV)
Dorls (from 13 December 1950 WAV-Gast, from 17 January 1951 WAV, from 26 September 1951 Non-attached, am 23 October 1952 Mandatsaberkennung)
(from 7 September 1949 Nationale Rechte, from 5 October 1950 Non-attached (DRP), from 26 March 1952 DP-Gast, from 11 February 1953 Non-attached)
(from 29 February 1952)
(from 5 October 1950 FDP-Gast, from 20 December 1950 FDP)
(from 15 September 1949 Nationale Rechte, from 6 September 1950 Non-attached, from 13 December 1950 WAV-Gast, from 17 January 1951 WAV, from 26 September 1951 Non-attached, until 21 February 1952)
Thadden (from 15 September 1949 Nationale Rechte; 1950 DRP, from 20 April 1950 Non-attached)
Clausen (from 23 January 1952 FU-Gast, from 3 July 1953 Non-attached)
(CDU/CSU-Gast)
Freudenberg (from 5 December 1952 Non-attached)
(Non-attached, from 4 May 1950 WAV-Gast, from 13 October 1950 BHE/DG, from 21 March 1952 Non-attached, from 26 March 1952 DP/DPB-Gast, from 26 June 1952 Non-attached)
Berg (from 27 June 1955, from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
Blank (from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
Blücher (from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
Luchtenberg (from 18 September 1954, until 9 April 1956)
Manteuffel (from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
(until 14 May 1956)
Mende
Middelhauve (until 10 September 1954)
Neumayer (from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
(until 20 September 1955)
Preiß (from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
(from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
(from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
Scheel
(from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
Stammberger
Starke
(from 13 January 1954 Non-attached, from 6 February 1957 GB/BHE)
(from 15 May 1956)
(from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 23 June 1956 CDU/CSU)
(until 17 September 1954)
Wirths (until 16 June 1955)
DPS:
(from 4 January 1957, Guest of FDP-Fraktion)
(from 4 January 1957, from 8 January 1957 Guest of FDP-Fraktion)
(from 4 January 1957, Non-attached, from 8 January 1957 Guest of FDP-Fraktion)
Speaker: until 15 March 1955; 15 March 1955 till 26 April 1956; from 26 April 1956]]
Members:
(from 12 July 1955 Non-attached, from 14 July 1955 Group Kraft/Oberländer, from 15 July 1955 Guest of CDU/CSU-Fraktion, from 20 March 1956 CDU/CSU)
Czermak (from 14 July 1955 FDP)
Eckhardt (from 12 July 1955 Non-attached, from 14 July 1955 Group Kraft/Oberländer, from 15 July 1955 Guest of CDU/CSU-Fraktion, from 20 March 1956 CDU/CSU)
(until 13 October 1953)
Finck (from 12 July 1955 Non-attached, from 14 July 1955 Group Kraft/Oberländer, from 15 July 1955 Guest of CDU/CSU-Fraktion, from 20 March 1956 CDU/CSU)
(from 12 July 1955 Non-attached, from 14 July 1955 Group Kraft/Oberländer, from 15 July 1955 Guest of CDU/CSU-Fraktion, from 20 March 1956 CDU/CSU)
(from 12 July 1955 Non-attached, from 14 July 1955 FDP, from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
Kraft (from 12 July 1955 Non-attached, from 14 July 1955 Group Kraft/Oberländer, from 15 July 1955 Guest of CDU/CSU-Fraktion, from 20 March 1956 CDU/CSU)
(from 20 August 1954 CDU/CSU)
Oberländer (from 12 July 1955 Non-attached, from 14 July 1955 Group Kraft/Oberländer, from 15 July 1955 Guest of CDU/CSU-Fraktion, from 20 March 1956 CDU/CSU)
(from 15 October 1953, from 12 July 1955 Non-attached, from 14 July 1955 Group Kraft/Oberländer, from 15 July 1955 Guest of CDU/CSU-Fraktion, from 20 March 1956 CDU/CSU)
Grand Cross of the Order of Christ, Portugal (10 April 1958) [2]
CDU/CSU