Background
APEL, Hans was born on February 25, 1932 in Hamburg.
economist fiction writer politician secretary university professor
APEL, Hans was born on February 25, 1932 in Hamburg.
After completing his apprenticeship he went to university, where he studied Economics.
From 1972 to 1974 he was Parliamentary State Secretary to the Foreign Minister. From 1974 to 1978 he was the Minister of Finance and from 1978 to 1982 he was the Minister of Defence. After completing his Abitur (roughly equivalent to graduating high school, A-Level exam) in 1954 in Hamburg, he served an apprenticeship as an import and export businessman, in Hamburg.
In 1960 he was awarded a doctorate in Political Science.
From 1958 to 1961 he was the Secretary of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament. In 1962 he became a civil servant at the European Parliament, where he served as Department Head responsible for Economics, Finance and Transport.
In 1993 he was appointed an honorary professor of Economics at the University of Rostock. Hans and Ingrid Apel wed in 1956.
They had two daughters.
Apel joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1955. In 1969 he was deputy chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany parliamentary group and again in 1983, after the new elections, until 1988. In 1972, Apel was appointed Parliamentary State Secretary for European Questions at the German Foreign Office.
In 1974, he was appointed Finance Minister in the government of Helmut Schmidt.
After the cabinet reshuffle of 1978, he was put in charge of the Ministry of Defense. He left government on 1 October 1982, after Helmut Kohl became Chancellor.
In 1985, he ran as the top candidate for the Social Democratic Party of Germany in Berlin, which implied standing as Mayor of Berlin, but lost to the Christian Democratic Union candidate Eberhard Diepgen. Apel spent his later years speaking about religion.
In 2004 he was awarded the Walter Künneth Prize by the "Kirchliche Sammlung um Bibel und Bekenntnis in Bayern" (the Ecclesiastical Assembly for the Bible and Commitment in Bavaria), a conservative Lutheran organization.
From 1970 to 1988 he was a member of the National Executive (Bundesvorstand) of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, and from 1986 to 1988 he was also a member of the Executive Board (Präsidium). From 1965 to 1990, Apel was a member of the German Bundestag, representing Hamburg Nord.
Married Ingrid Schwingel in 1956.