Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf

Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf (6 May 1893^[1] – 21 December 1961^[2]) was a German politician (SPD).

Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf 1948

He joined the SPD in 1919.^[3] Kopf worked from 1939 to 1943 on behalf of the Nazi government as an asset manager in occupied Poland, initially with his own company together with the lawyer Edmund Bohne, later for the Haupttreuhandstelle Ost^[4] and was "trustee of confiscated Polish and Jewish goods" and worked as an expropriation commissioner in the Lubliniec region.^[5] In 1948, Polish authorities requested his extradition for being involved in deportations, harassing and abusing Polish workers, and confiscating Jewish property, but Military Governor Robertson dismissed the allegations saying they were "insufficient".^[6]

He served as Prime Minister of the short-lived State of Hanover in 1946 and then as Minister President of Lower Saxony from 1946 to 1955 and from 1959 to 1961.^[7] He served as the third President of the Bundesrat from 7 September 1951 to 6 September 1952.^[8]

Kopf was born in Neuenkirchen, Hanover, and died in Göttingen.^[9][10]

His grave is located in the Stöcken city cemetery in Hanover and was a so-called honorary grave of the city of Hanover until 2015, whose administration decorated it with flowers and cared for it.^[11]