Punder, Hermann

(1888-1976)

   bureaucrat; the Chancellery's State Secretary and one of the Republic's esteemed civil servants. Born in Trier to a government counselor, he studied law during 1906-1909 and took a doctorate at Jena in 1911. Having acquired a reserve commission in 1913, he was activated in August 1914. He ended the war as a major, whereupon he joined the Finance Ministry. He supervised the Minister's office from 1921; in 1925 he was pro-moted to ministerial director and transferred to the Chancellery. In 1926 he became Staatssekretär, a position he held until 1932. Possessed of uncommon loyalty and intellect, he became a familiar face at international meetings, thereby playing a key advisory role to several Chancellors. As fellow members of the Center Party,* he and Heinrich Brüning* formed an especially warm relation-ship. Pünder was so affronted at the way in which Brüning was displaced by Franz von Papen* that he tendered his resignation in June 1932 (Erwin Planck* succeeded him). He was soon named Regierungspräsident in Münster; the NSDAP dismissed him in July 1933.

   Pünder's friendship with Carl Goerdeler* brought his arrest after the July 1944 attempt on Hitler's* life. Although he was probably uninvolved in the resistance, he was nonetheless incarcerated until American soldiers rescued him in May 1945. He helped found the Christian Democratic Union and in October 1945 succeeded Konrad Adenauer* as Oberburgermeister of Cologne.

   REFERENCES:Pünder, Politik in der Reichskanzlei, and Von Preussen nach Europa; Stachura, Political Leaders.