Herbert Wehner
German politician (KPD, SPD) (1906-1990)
Richard Herbert Wehner (11 July 1906 – 19 January 1990) was a German politician. A former member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), he joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) after World War II. He served as Federal Minister of Intra-German Relations from 1966 to 1969 and thereafter as chairman of the SPD parliamentary group in the Bundestag until 1983.
During his tenure in the Bundestag from 1949 to 1983, Wehner became famous for his caustic rhetoric and heckling style, often hurling personal insults at MPs with whom he disagreed. He holds the record for official censures (77 by one count, 78 or 79 by others) handed down by the presiding officer.
Life
Wehner was born in Dresden, the son of a shoemaker. His father was active in his trade union and a member of the SPD. More radical than his father, Wehner engaged in anarcho-syndicalist circles around Erich Mühsam, driven by the 1923 invasion of Reichswehr troops into the Free State of Saxony at the behest of the DVP–SPD Reich government of Chancellor Gustav Stresemann. He also fell out with Mühsam, whose pacifist manners he rejected and was accused of stealing money by him, which Wehner never denied. He joined the KPD in 1927, becoming an official of the party's Rote Hilfe organisation the same year.
Wehner rose quickly and was elected to the Landtag state legislature of Saxony in 1930. Nevertheless, he resigned one year later to work at the KPD politburo in Berlin with Walter Ulbricht.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Herbert Wehner” is german politician (KPD, SPD) (1906-1990). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Herbert, Wehner and German, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “german politician (KPD, SPD) (1906-1990)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q77095. VIAF identifies the subject as 64018954. The Library of Congress control number is n50022728. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1906, 1990, 1966 and 1969.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
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This entry incorporates text from “Herbert Wehner” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.