Franz Mader
Franz Mader (28 January 1912 – 24 October 1988) was a German politician and a colonel in the Wehrmacht. He served in World War II with the German Army and earned the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and the German Cross in Gold.
After the war he entered politics. He joined the Free Democratic Party (FDP) in 1956 and served as a deputy in Bielefeld's city council for more than twenty years. In 1967 he was elected to the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament for the FDP and was re-elected in 1970 for the Ostwestfalen-Lippe district.
In June 1970 he helped found the National Liberal Action, a faction led by Erich Mende that wanted the FDP to oppose Ostpolitik (the federal government's policy of improving relations with East and Eastern Europe). After Walter Scheel remained FDP chairman, Mader and the National Liberal Action left the FDP, and on 1 December 1971 he joined the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
In the 1975 state elections he won the Bielefeld-Stadt constituency, the CDU's only win there. He did not stand for re-election in 1980.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 23:03 (CET).