Bernhard Quandt

Bernhard Quandt ( born April 14, 1903 in Rostock, † August 2, 1999 in Schwerin ) was a German politician (SPD, KPD, SED).

Life

Quandt was born the son of a single woman; his father was a soldier of the imperial army and died four months before his birth in a riding accident in Parchim.

As a six year old, he attended elementary school in Parchim and learned Gielow in the profession of iron turner. In 1920, he joined the Social Democratic Party, worked for three years in Hamburg and moved in connection with the KPD. He was politically active from 1932 and briefly Member of the Landtag of Mecklenburg -Schwerin, but worked in changing professions. After the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933, he was repeatedly arrested and interned from 1939 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp and Dachau. He survived the imprisonment and was appointed district administrator in Güstrow by the Soviets after his return.

From 1948 he was Minister of Agriculture of Mecklenburg and 1951/52, Prime Minister of the country. After the dissolution of the countries in the GDR in 1952, he was First Secretary of the SED to 1974 in the district of Schwerin.

Quandt opposed during his time as Prime Minister, among others, successfully the decisions of the Politburo to build multi-storey housing estates and in the countryside, which had " botched " the historically grown village organization according to his view.

He was also a member of the SED Central Committee from 1958 until December 3, 1989, the State Council of the GDR. In this capacity, he called at the last meeting of the Central Committee of the SED in 1989, the reintroduction of the death penalty and the firing squad of all those (the " gang of the old Politburo " ), the (SED ) was such a shame (meaning the party of power loss due to the revolutionary events of autumn 1989 had brought ). Nevertheless, he was elected in 1990 in the Council of Elders of the SED - PDS.