Hans August Lücker
Life

Hans August Lücker was born in Krümmel, near Montabaur, on February 21, 1915. He grew up in a Catholic farming family and studied at a lay high school. After taking his Abitur exams in 1934, he began university studies but was prevented from continuing because of his refusal to join the Hitler Youth or any other Nazi organisation. He was called up for military service in October 1939.

After the war, Lücker began a fast-moving professional career as Director of the Bavarian Chambers of Agriculture. He became an agrarian expert in Johannes Semmler's and Ludwig Erhard's working group for the reconstruction of the country; one of tasks was to elaborate a proposal for using Marshall Plan funds in the agricultural sector.

In 1953 he was, for the first time, elected to the Bundestag on the CSU ticket, representing the Unterallgäu and Ostallgäu constituency until 1980. From the outset of his career in Bonn, Lücker was a Member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community, which was to become the European Parliament. In 1969, Lücker began six years as leader of the Christian Democratic parliamentary group, and in 1972 was invited to draft proposals for a political union. This was accepted the same year by the European Parliament and put to the Summit meeting.

Before the first direct elections to the European Parliament, Lücker was largely responsible for working on the basic programme for the party which he helped to christen the "European People's Party." Having been involved in the process of enlarging the Community to include the UK, Ireland and Denmark, Lücker also went on to play an important role in developing relations with Latin America, in enlarging the EEC to the south, and the entry of Greece.

In 1985, aged 70, Lücker retired from the European Parliament and withdrew from active politics. But he remained much in demand as an adviser on European matters. Hans August Lücker was distinguished among other things with the Grand Cross with the star and shoulder band given by the Republic of Germany for distinguished service. In 1986, he received the Robert Schuman medal from the EPP parliamentary group in the European Parliament for his services to European integration.