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Landeswohlfahrtsverband Hessen (LWV) - Regional Administration Wiesbaden

The Landeswohlfahrtsverband Hessen was founded in 1953 and follows in the tradition of the two district municipal associations of Wiesbaden and Kassel, which carried out supra-regional self-administration tasks in the province of Hesse-Nassau after 1866. All districts and independent cities of the new federal state joined together in the Landeswohlfahrt municipal association in order to perform supra-local social tasks at the same level throughout Hesse; other areas of responsibility of the Prussian predecessors such as road construction, economic development and culture were taken over by state agencies, institutions under special law and the individual municipalities.

LWV administration building at Frankfurter Strasse 44, 1963
LWV administration building at Frankfurter Strasse 44, 1963

The Landeswohlfahrtsverband Hessen has its own "social parliament", the composition of which is based on the results of local elections. To this day, the central tasks are supra-local social assistance for people with disabilities, integration of severely disabled people in the workplace, care for war victims and the sponsorship of its own, in particular psychiatric and socio-educational facilities and clinics (the latter have been managed by a holding company since 2008). Only the area of educational assistance was handed over to the state and local authorities. Tuberculosis care, which was important in the 1950s and 1960s, has been discontinued. In October 1953, Kassel was chosen as the headquarters of the new association and the venue for the LWV Association Assembly, with regional administrations in Wiesbaden and Darmstadt. Since 1960/61, the Landeswohlfahrtsverband has been based in a modern administration building at Frankfurter Strasse 44. In the early years (until 1961), the head of the secondary administration in Wiesbaden was State Councillor Franz Fuchs (SPD), who was also President of the State Parliament from 1962-66.

Today, the Wiesbaden regional administration with the departments of supra-local social welfare, assistance for the severely disabled, war victims' welfare and community psychiatry reports directly to the head of the Kassel administration. Almost 190 employees of the Hesse State Welfare Association work in the Wiesbaden regional administration.

Literature

Flemming, Jens; Vanja, Christina (eds.): "Dieses Haus ist gebaute Demokratie". The Ständehaus in Kassel and its parliamentary tradition (Hist. Schriftenreihe des Landeswohlfahrtsverbandes Hessen, Quellen u. Studien Bd. 13), Kassel 2007.

Landeswohlfahrtsverband Hessen (ed.): Illustrated Chronicle 50 Years of the Landeswohlfahrtsverband Hessen, Kassel 2003.

Reference

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Explanations and notes

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