Heuss, Theodor

Heuss, Theodor

(born Jan. 31, 1884, Brackenheim, German Empire—died Dec. 12, 1963, Stuttgart, W.Ger.) German politician and author. A member of the German Democratic Party during the Weimar Republic, he served in the Reichstag (1924–28, 1930–33). After Adolf Hitler came to power, Heuss's books on political science were burned as “un-German.” After World War II (1939–45), he helped found the Free Democratic Party and served (1948–49) on the parliamentary council that wrote the West German constitution. He served as president of the new state from 1949 until his retirement in 1959.

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Heuss, Theodor 

Born Jan. 31, 1884, in Brackenheim; died Dec. 12, 1963, in Stuttgart. Government figure of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG).

Heuss was educated at the universities of Munich and Berlin, where he studied political economy and art history. He contributed to various newspapers and journals in the 1930’s. From 1924 to 1928 and from 1930 to 1933, Heuss was a deputy to the Reichstag, representing the bourgeois German Democratic Party. He was a founder and, from 1948 to 1949, chairman of the Free Democratic Party. Heuss served as president of the FRG from 1949 to 1959.