Anton Hoppe
Anton Hoppe was a German trade unionist and politician of the Centre Party during the Weimar Republic. He was active in local and provincial politics in the Province of Westphalia until the Nazi seizure of power in 1933. After Germany's defeat in the Second World War, he became a co-founder of the Christian Democratic Union in Westphalia and served as a member of the German Bundestag from 1949 to 1953. He was also the district administrator or deputy administrator of the Recklinghausen district between 1946 and 1961.
Life
Hoppe was born in Mülheim am Rhein, attended a Catholic Volksschule and then apprenticed as a locksmith and lathe operator. In 1914, he joined the Christian trade union movement, serving as the district leader in Recklinghausen district from 1928 to 1935 when the organization was forcibly dissolved by the Nazi Party. Hoppe was a member of the Catholic-oriented Centre Party from 1910. From 1926 to 1933, he served as an alderman and member of the city council of Herten, and on the Recklinghausen district council. He also on the provincial parliament of the Province of Westphalia from 1930 to 1933. From 1937, he worked as a treasurer for the Catholic church tax office in Herten.After the end of the Second World War, Hoppe was among the founding members of the Christian Democratic Union in Westphalia and Recklinghausen. Hoppe was a member of the first and second appointed state parliaments of North Rhine-Westphalia between 1946 and 1950. From October 1946 to September 1964, he returned to the Recklinghausen district council. He was elected to the first Bundestag in the 1949 federal election by winning the direct mandate in the constituency of Recklinghausen-Land. He left parliament in 1953. From 1946 to 1956, he served as the Landrat of the district of Recklinghausen, and as the deputy Landrat to March 1961. Hoppe died at Herten in August 1968.