Норберт Блюм: Немецкий политик и социальный деятель

German politician (1935–2020)

Norbert Blüm (21 July 1935 – 23 April 2020) was a German politician who served as a federal legislator from North Rhine Westphalia, chairman of the CDU North Rhine Westphalia (1987–1999), and Minister of Labour and Social Affairs. Blüm was the only cabinet member who served in his function for all sixteen years of Helmut Kohl's time as Chancellor of Germany. He served as a member of the Bundestag from 1972 to 1981 and again from 1983 to 2002. Blüm was part of the left wing of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Born in Rüsselsheim am Main, Blüm attended the Volksschule. In 1950, aged 15, Blüm joined the CDU. This year he also joined the IG Metall. That's why he often was nicknamed Herz Jesu Marxist. He trained and worked locally as a toolmaker for Opel from 1949 to 1957. In 1961 he passed his Abitur at an Abendgymnasium in Mainz, thereby obtaining the university entrance qualification. He studied German language and literature, history, philosophy and theology at the University of Bonn and University of Cologne until 1967.

Blüm was a member of the Bundestag for the CDU from 1972 to 1981 and again from 1983 to 2002. Blüm served as chairman of the CDU of the state of North Rhine Westphalia from 1987 to 1999.

Blüm adhered to Christian values and belonged to the left wing of the generally centre right CDU. Blüm was strongly influenced by the Jesuit social philosopher Oswald von Nell Breuning, one of the founders of the modern Catholic social teaching who lectured in Frankfurt. Nell Breuning taught Blüm about the main three pillars "subsidiarity", "solidarity" and "charity". During his time in office, Blüm held out and pushed back against demands by fellow CDU politicians to raise the federal retirement age from 65 to 70. A popular quotation attributed to him is "Die Rente ist sicher" (loosely translated as: "Pensions are safe"), based on the governmental slogan he wielded in 1986: "Eins ist sicher: Die Rente" ("One thing is safe: pensions"). Blüm once said that "politics is a struggle". "Whoever is in search of harmony must look for another profession. ( ) But if you want to change something, you cannot please everybody." Core issues of his politics were social justice and the fight against unemployment. For Blüm, "the little people" were important, which is why he tried to prevent a division of society into rich and poor with his politics. Blüm was an outspoken critic of Scientology. As a consequence, he was targeted by Scientology advocates, who would claim that the organization was a victim of religious discrimination in Germany. Despite his good relationship with Helmut Kohl, Blüm criticized his handling of the CDU donations scandal. After his departure from the Bundestag in 2002, he continued to comment on political issues publicly. Because of his criticism of Israel in the Middle East conflict, he was sometimes accused of antisemitism, which he rejected. In 2016, he criticised the CDU's refugee policy because of the cold hearted discussion about refugees. During the refugee crisis, the former minister visited the Greek refugee camp Idomeni in 2016 and heavily criticized the EU's treatment of refugees ("This kind of brutality is unworthy of European culture"). Out of solidarity he slept one night in the refugee camp. In 2016 he opposed an unconditional basic income, on which Switzerland held a referendum at this time. It would be "unfair" and an "attempted escape from welfare state responsibility".

Blüm married Marita Blüm (née Binger) in 1964. He commented in a guest article for the German weekly Die Zeit in March 2020 about his new life in a wheelchair due to his paralysis, in which he compared his position to that of a puppet whose strings were pulled so that its parts dangled incoherently in the air: "Like a thief in the night, disaster broke into my life in the form of insidious blood poisoning". Blüm died in Bonn on 23 April 2020.