Wilhelm Kaisen

Carl Wilhelm Kaisen was a German politician from the Social Democratic Party of Germany who served as the 2nd President of the Senate and Mayor of Bremen from 1945 to 1965. In 1958/59 he served as the 10th President of the Bundesrat. He became a symbolic figure of the German reconstruction in Bremen after 1945.

Kaisen was born in the German city of Hamburg, and spent his youth there. His family's poverty did not allow him to visit a higher school or even receive a high school education. In 1905 he became a member of the SPD. After World War I, he moved to his wife's home city of Bremen. Influenced by his family, he got the SPD into the parliament of Bremen. From 1919 to 1928 he was a journalist and editor-in-chief of the SPD newspaper Bremer Bürger-Zeitung. From 1920 to 1928 he was member of the Bürgerschaft. In 1928, Kaisen became the SPD Senator of Social Services in the Senate of Bremen. In March 1933, he was pressured to resign by the Nazis.