Hans Katzer (31 January 1919 – 18 July 1996) was a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He served as Federal Minister for Labour and Social Affairs of West Germany from 1965 to 1969 under Ludwig Erhard and Kurt Georg Kiesinger. During his time as minister, he helped improve war victims' pensions and helped pass the Labour Promotion Act (Arbeitsförderungsgesetz, AFG)[a] in 1969, which was meant to upskill workers, push a more active labour market policy, and create the Federal Institute of Labour. It was replaced in 1997 with the Third Book of the Social Code upon the implementation of the Employment Promotion Reform Act.[1]
Katzer was born on 31 January 1919 in Cologne, the sixth child of the carpenter Karl Katzer and Rosa Katzer (née Franke).[2] Karl had been a secretary of the Kolping Society since 1902 and later administrative director from 1927 to 1938.[3] He was also a member of the council of Cologne for the Centre Party from 1919 to 1933.[2] In 1929, he joined the Jugendbund Neudeutschland, a Catholic organization affiliated with the Centre Party.[4] Due to his father's social status, he attended a Realgymnasium, dreaming of becoming an architect, but the seizure of power of the Nazi Party made his father lose his mandates and positions.[5] He was forced to leave the Realgymnasium in 1935 due to this.[6] He then did a commercial apprenticeship at a Cologne textile company, where he worked as part of the Reich Labour Service from 1938 to 1940,[7] and attended the Higher Technical School for the Textile Industry in Mönchengladbach from 1939 to 1942.[8]
In 1945, upon recommendation of Johannes Albers, he was placed in the Cologne Federal Employment Agency.[12] Katzer would later say Albers "introduced him to politics", who was also his political mentor in addition to Jakob Kaiser.[13] That year he also joined the CDU in Cologne upon its founding.[14] In 1952, the local elections for North Rhine-Westphalia happened and the CDU won 31 of the 66 seats of the council of Cologne, and he was elected a member alongside people like Ernst Schwering.[15] During this time period he also became the co-editor of the magazines "Soziale Ordnung" and "Betriebsräte-Briefes".[16]
In the Bundestag from 1969 to 1980 he was Deputy Federal Chairman of the CDU and also of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group.[19] He was also a member of the CDU Executive Committee from 1960.[20] He also became the Chairman of the Committee on Economic Property from 1961 to 1965.[21][22]
He was sharply critical throughout his career of the distribution of ownership by means of production, stating in a 1970 Bundestag debate it was not good that at the time 71% of the capital was in the hands of the 1.7%, and states it had come from a bygone era of the post-war years.[23]
In 1967, he threatened to resign alongside Gerhard Schröder if his budget was cut.[26] That same year unemployment reached a record high in the within the last decade, and he said it was a "decisive goal" of his administration's policy.[27] Unemployment would remain a huge issue during his time as minister, as endangered areas like the Saarland and the Bavarian Forest had significantly higher rates of unemployment.[28] Prior to his term, miners were referred to the Ruhr for work, but they would later not move and layoff figures rose.[28] Katzer also helped improve war victims' pensions.[29][30]
In 1969 Katzer started pushing the Labour Promotion Act, which introduced a more active labour market policy in an attempt to fight unemployment and inferior employment.[31] In addition, it created the Federal Institute of Labour to oversee this push and to upskill workers.[32] The act was praised across the spectrum of parties after the preceding crisis of unemployment in 1967.[33] After the 1969 West German federal election, he and his followers who were generally considered leftists, attempted to ally with SPD in an attempt to push his social policy but they were rejected by Helmut Schmidt.[34]
CDA
In 1950 he became the Chief Executive Officer of the CDA Social Committees, which he headed until 1963.[35][36] In April 1957, Kaiser suffered a massive stroke and so Katzer became the chief strategist for the Social Committees of the CDA in addition to his responsibilities as CEO.[37] His long-term goals for that position at the time were to persuade Catholic bishops to switch their support from the Christian trade unions so that the more powerful DGB would consider an alliance with the CDA, create a relationship with the Catholic workers’ clubs, and unify the workers' wing of the CDU.[37] In 1963 he became the chairman of the social committees, heading it until 1977 when Blüm took over.[38]
His plans for his social committees largely corresponded with the ideas of the SPD, which included higher child benefit subsidies, an investment wage for employees, and more codetermination.[39] He helped pass the Savings Premium Act and the issuance of shares to the general public at a discounted rate.[39] In 1973, at a meeting with the social committees, Katzer called for a return of the Ahlen Program for the CDU,[40] which called for the partial socialization of large-scale industry and strong co-determination rights.[41] That same year he received a major defeat when his push for parity co-determination, or 50% of a board being workers, was rejected soundly by the CDU.[37][42]
He was considered a political mentor to Norbert Blüm, who later led the same ministerial role as him.[43] However, there was later a reported feud between them in the late 1970s when Blüm succeeded him as chairman of the CDU Social Committees, as Blüm's newer followers helped oust him but Katzer later said there was nothing between them.[44][45]
Later political work
Katzer headed the Jakob Kaiser Foundation, and in this role pushed for German reunification.[46] Starting in 1980 he also helped lead the German chapter of the European Union of Christian Democratic Workers alongside Alfred Bertrand.[47]
^Schoefer, Benjamin; Noy, Shakked; Jäger, Simon (29 June 2021). "What Does Codetermination Do?". The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance. Retrieved 6 January 2025.