Born: December 31, 1885 in Worms
died: May 5, 1973 in Wiesbaden

After attending elementary and technical school, Heinrich Zinnkann completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith and mechanic. In 1903, he became involved in trade union activities with the German Metalworkers' Association. In 1919, Zinnkann became managing director of this trade union association, and in 1922 he became its workers' secretary in the People's State of Hesse. His involvement in party politics began in 1906 when he joined the SPD.

His election to the office of Worms city councillor in 1919 marked the beginning of his political career. From 1924 onwards, he was a member of the state parliament of the People's State of Hesse, where he became chairman of the SPD parliamentary group in 1931. In addition to his parliamentary activities, Zinnkann held the office of government councillor in the Hessian Ministry of Labor and Economics from 1928. The "seizure of power" by the National Socialists initially put an end to Zinnkann's political career. He was removed from office and dismissed from the civil service in March 1933. Initially unemployed, he earned his living at Deutsche Bausparkasse between October 1935 and June 1944. At the end of the World War, Zinnkann was drafted into the Wehrmacht.

After liberation from the dictatorship, he continued his intensive political work. The Hessian SPD elected him as its deputy state chairman in 1945. As an experienced politician who was untainted by his Nazi past, he was quickly able to take on high-ranking public offices. Zinnkann ended his administrative work at the Darmstadt Regional Council, which he had taken up in 1945, after the military government appointed him Minister of the Interior on August 7, 1946. He continued in this office after the constitution was adopted on December 1, 1946 until the start of the 3rd legislative period in January 1954.

In December of the same year, he was elected President of the Hessian State Parliament, to which he had belonged since its foundation in 1946 as a member of the SPD. As President, Zinnkann was strongly committed to the expansion of the state parliament; the inauguration of the new plenary chamber took place in the last year of his term of office. Zinnkann received several awards for his social and political commitment: the Federal Cross of Merit in 1954, the Badge of Honor of the City of Frankfurt am Main in 1955, the Grand Cross of Merit with Star of the Federal Cross of Merit in 1956 and the Wilhelm Leuschner Medal in 1965 (the first recipient ever), the highest award of the State of Hesse.