Ulrich Biel


Ulrich Biel was a German politician and representative of the Christian Democratic Union.
After studying law and political science in 1934, he emigrated to the United States because of his Jewish origins. After the end of World War II, he returned to Berlin as an American officer but became a German citizen again.

Political Career

In 1946, Biel was "a captain in the U.S. Army and head of the political division of the staff of the then Colonel, Frank L. Howley, the U.S. commandant in Berlin." In 1967 he was running for Berlin assembly against Willy Brandt, who at the time was Foreign Minister and candidate for the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Both men had been refugees during the Nazi regime. They were after the vote of a working-class city district surrounded on two sides by the Berlin Wall. The election four years earlier saw the Christian Democratic Union of Germany poll just over 20%. In this election, Biel saw little to no point in facilitating discussions with the communist leaders of the East, instead, he saw progress coming through a four-power conference on the issue of Berlin.
For eight years, 14 March 1971 to 23 April 1979, he was a member of the Berlin House of Representatives.
Ulrich Biel was honored for his achievements with the Ernst-Reuter-badge. The CDU sought in the district assembly to designate a place or a street after him.

Personal Life

Ulrich was born to Richard Bielschowsky and Mathilde née Simon in Berlin. His mother, Mathilde, was killed in the Holocaust at Riga Ghetto. She was in the same deportation on 5 September 1942 as International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame athlete Lilli Henoch. On 8 September 1943, both women were murdered at gunpoint by the Einsatzgruppen.
In her book The Power of Solitude: My Life in the German Resistance, Marion Yorck von Wartenberg recounts that she met Biel at the end of 1946 when he joined his friend Paulus van Husen in visiting her house. They became friends and later romantic partners living together for some 50 years. Biel encouraged Countess Marion Yorck von Wartenberg to return to her efforts of becoming a lawyer. She succeeded and quickly became a judge. Marion reflected on how Biel has impacted her stating that "Through him I have gained a lively relationship to politics and to public life in general." 3