Background
Kaisen was born in the German city of Hamburg, and spent his youth there.
Kaisen was born in the German city of Hamburg, and spent his youth there.
Between 1945 and 1965 he was the 2nd President of the Senate and Mayor of Bremen. In 1958/59 he served as the 10th President of the Bundesrat. He became a symbol of the German reconstruction in Bremen after 1945.
His family"s poverty did not allow him to visit a higher school or even receive a high school education.
After World War I, he moved to his wife"s home city Bremen. Influenced by his family he managed to get the Social Democratic Party of Germany into the parliament of Bremen (Bürgerschaft).
From 1919 to 1928 he was journalist and editor-in-chief of the Social Democratic Party of Germany newspaper Bremer Bürger-Zeitung. In 1928, Kaisen became the Social Democratic Party of Germany Senator of Social Services in the Senate of Bremen.
In March 1933, he was pressured to resign by Nazis.
He spent his time with agricultural work in the suburb of Bremen-Borgfeld. On 1 August 1945, the United States military government made Kaisen mayor of Bremen. Supported by the Liberals as well as the Communists he tried to re-establish the political and economical structures of the Weimar Republic.
He was re-elected by the people of Bremen during the first free elections after the war.
In July 1965, after nearly twenty years in office, he resigned as mayor. Kaisen was very popular with the general public, but less so within the Social Democratic Party of Germany itself.
The decision to position Germany within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization led to a break with chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany Kurt Schumacher. Kaisen died in Bremen on 19 December 1979.
H. West. List of mayors of Bremen.
Kaisen was not involved in politics during the Nazism era.
In 1905 he became a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. From 1920 to 1928 he was member of the Bürgerschaft.