Till Backhaus (born Neuhaus 13 March 1959) is a German politician. As the German Democratic Republic approached its end as a standalone state, Backhaus was one of those who in December 1989 (re-)founded the Social Democratic Party, more than four decades after its suppression.[1][2]
More recently, in 1998 he was appointed regional Minister for Agriculture in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,[1] a post he retains, making him the longest serving regional minister currently (2021) in office in Germany.
In December 1989, the month in which even the country's monolithic SED felt the need to participate with the Social Democrats in "round table talks", Backhaus, who hitherto had not engaged in politics, joined the SDP[3] and was a co-founder of its Neuhaus (Elbe) district branch.[4] When, after German reunification in October 1990, the eastern and western branches of the SPD came together into a single national party, Backhaus remained an active party leader in the locality.[2] Reflecting administrative boundary changes, he was district party chairman for the SPD in the Hagenow district from 1991 till 1994, and for the Hagenow-Ludwigslust district from 1994 till 2003.[2]
At the regional level, between 2003 and 2007[4] he served as Chairman for Mecklenburg-Vorpommern region SPD group and a member of the leadership team between 2005 and 2007. Reflecting his agricultural qualifications and subsequent ministerial responsibilities (see below) he has for many years been a leading spokesman for the regional party on consumer affairs, food and agriculture.
At the regional level he has since 1990 sat as a member of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern regional legislative assembly. Between 1990 and 1994 he was elected from the SPD Mecklenburg-Vorpommern regional list, and since 1994 he has represented the "Ludwigslust I" subdivision electoral district within the Mecklenburg-Vorpommernregion).[2] Within the assembly, between 1992 and 1998 he was chairman of the Agriculture Committee, and from 1994 till 1998 of the Agriculture and Nature Protection committee.[4]
After the 1998 regional election Backhaus was offered the position of State Minister for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries for Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in the regional administration headed up, at that time, by his party colleague Harald Ringstorff. Backhaus accepted the post, and retained it (now with Consumer protection and environmental protection added to the portfolio) it after 7 November 2006[2] when, controversially, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern SPD entered into a ruling coalition with the CDU (party), following regional election results that had been disappointing for both parties.
As one of the state’s representatives at the Bundesrat, Backhaus is a member of the Committee on Agricultural Policy and Consumer Protection and of the Committee on Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.
Landgesellschaft Mecklenburg-Vorpommern mbH, Chairman of the Supervisory Board[7]
The long word
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is a relatively rural state and the Agriculture ministry has given Backhaus a high ministerial profile in the region. In 1999 his department came up with a legislative proposal which broke records for an unusual reason.
In 2015, as the minister responsible, Backhaus was called upon to make a ministerial statement after the (presumably temporary) closure of Rostockzoo in the wake of a bird flu scare which had necessitated the precautionary killing of storks, ducks and a red ibis.[12] Nor was this the first bird flu scare in the region to necessitate ministerial intervention.[13] In the preceding fifteen years his intervention has frequently been invoked in other food, agriculture and environment related scares.
A more personal media controversy arose in respect of the Doctorate in Agriculture which Backhaus received from Berlin's Humboldt University in 2001.[14] His dissertation was entitled "Reflections on Grain Production in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern between 1900 and 2000".[15] Sources are silent over when the work was started, but public reaction may have been triggered by the fact that by the time he actually received the doctorate Backhaus had already been the regional Minister for Agriculture for more than two years. The Agriculture Scientist Wilhelm Römer went public with his opinion that the dissertation was an "insubstantial compilation" without "formal scientific substance" ("substanzlos[es] Machwerk ... [der] ... weder inhaltlich noch formal wissenschaftlichen Ansprüchen [entspräche]"). There was also criticism that the dissertation had been supervised in 2000 and 2001 by Norbert Makowski, a distinguished plant-scientist who at the time was alleged to have been undertaking paid consultancy work indirectly involving the ministry.[16][17]
Personal life
Till Backhaus has three children from two of his three marriages.[18] He married his third wife, Ivonne Menzel, in June 2012. Press attention focused not on her career as a dentist,[19] but on her youth and her recent celebrity as a beauty queen.[20]
^ abcdefgAngelika Voß (web administration). "Meine Biografie". Till Backhaus. Archived from the original on 24 February 2015. Retrieved 17 January 2015.
^In 1989/90 the newly re-formed East German SDP differentiated itself from the West German SPD by reversing the letters "P" and "D" when identifying the party by its initials.
^Dr. Thomas Pitschmann & Volker Bruns (website contents management). "Aufsichtsrat und Gesellschafter". Landgesellschaft Mecklenburg-Vorpommern mbH, Leezen. Archived from the original on 19 January 2015. Retrieved 15 January 2015.
^Office became known as "Minister for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries" from 1998 to 2006 and "Minister for Agriculture, Environment and Consumer Protection" from 2007 to 2016.
