Wilhelm Knabe

Wilhelm Knabe
Wilhelm Knabe in 2014
Born	(1923-10-08)8 October 1923 Arnsdorf, Saxony, Germany
Died	30 January 2021(2021-01-30) (aged 97) Mülheim an der Ruhr, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Occupations	Agrarian scientist Ecologist Politician
Organizations	Humboldt University Bundestag
Political party	Christian Democratic Union (East Germany) (1946–1959) Christian Democratic Union of Germany (1959–1966) Green Party (1978–2021)
Awards	Order of Merit of North Rhine-Westphalia Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

Wilhelm Knabe (8 October 1923 – 30 January 2021) was a German ecologist, pacifist, civil servant and politician, remembered as a founding member of the Green Party in Germany, and a pioneer of conservation of the environment who shaped the party for decades.^[1]

Knabe studied forest management in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). As an assistant at the Humboldt University, he focused on the recultivation after brown coal mining. Knabe left East Germany in 1959, settling in Mülheim, West Germany with his family, where he worked for a state agency for ecology. He had been a member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) from 1946, because it represented his Christian ethics, but left the party in 1966, unwilling to support its belief in economic growth and nuclear energy. In 1978, he was a co-founder of the Green Party in Germany, standing for conservation of the environment and world peace. He was party speaker on a federal level, a member of the Bundestag from 1987 to 1990, and vice mayor of Mülheim from 1994 to 1999.