Born: February 24, 1894 in Rheydt
died: September 20, 1966 in Wiesbaden

After leaving elementary school, Arndgen took up the same profession as his father, a master plasterer from the Taunus region. Even before his military service in the First World War, Arndgen was involved in the Catholic youth movement as a devout Christian. His involvement in the trade union movement began at the start of the Weimar Republic. He held leading positions in the Central Association of Christian Leather Workers in Frankfurt am Main.

At the same time, the avowed Catholic held the office of chairman of the Christian-oriented German Trade Union Federation for Hesse and the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau. With his election as Reich Chairman of the Central Association of Christian Leather Workers in 1930, Arndgen took a stand for the Christian trade union movement. His joining the Center Party in 1931 during the decline of the Weimar Republic indicates an increased political commitment, now on the side of political Catholicism.

After the "seizure of power" by the National Socialists, Arndgen also faced political persecution as a trade union official. He was arrested twice, most recently after July 20, 1944; he secured his meagre existence during the Nazi dictatorship with a grocery store. His resistance activities in connection with an oppositional solidarity group of Christian trade unions in the Rhine-Main region remained undiscovered. Immediately after the end of the Second World War, Arndgen took part in the reconstruction of the trade unions.

As a co-founder of the CDU in Hesse, Arndgen played a significant role in the new political beginning. In 1946, he entered the Hessian state parliament for the CDU and served as its deputy chairman until 1949. In the field of social policy, he worked as a ministerial director in the Hessian Ministry of Labor and Welfare in 1946, then as the minister responsible for this department from 1947 to 1949. From 1949, Arndgen was a member of the 1st German Bundestag for his party. As a member of parliament for the Limburg-Untertaunus-Rheingau constituency, he campaigned for social policy issues such as child and sickness benefits. Arndgen died of a stroke just one year after leaving the Bundestag in 1965.