Volcker kauder vs gregor gysi biography

In he resigned as parliamentary spokesperson for the PDS after various accusations of corruption and collaboration with the Stasi in the past. He was forced to resign in April following a scandal over his use of flight tickets as an MP in the past. Despite this, he remained the most charismatic leader of the PDS and one of the most popular politicians among the citizens of East Germany, leading mobilizations against cuts to unemployment insurance and for greater social investments in the East.

He became a practicing lawyer in , and among his clients were dissidents who criticized the political system of the GDR, such as Robert Havemann and Rudolf Baro. Gysi has been a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany SEPG since and joined the protest movement in the late s, advocating for liberalization similar to the Soviet Union's perestroika.

In the first federal elections of unified Germany held on October 16, , Gysi was elected as one of the thirty PDS representatives in the Bundestag. In , he stepped down as party chairman but remained the leader of its parliamentary group from to He was re-elected to the Bundestag in the elections held on September 27, The year old served as Foreign Minister from in Angela Merkel's "grand coalition" government and challenged her in the in the election - and lost.

Since then he has been SPD parliamentary group leader - opting out for several weeks in when he donated a kidney to his wife. Latest videos Latest audio. In focus. Latest audio Latest videos. Left picks Gysi for Bundestag. He belonged to the reformist wing of the governing Socialist Unity Party of Germany at the time of the pro-democracy transition inspired by then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

He has strongly denied allegations that he used to assist the Stasi , the East German secret police. His father was Klaus Gysi , [ 2 ] a high-ranking official in East Germany who served as the Minister of Culture from to The surname "Gysi" is of Swiss-German origin. In addition to his legal work, Gysi emerged as one of East Germany's leading Gorbachev -inspired political reformists within the SED, especially towards the end of the s.

In , he and a group of lawyers presented a counter-draft to the government's Travel Bill, which authorised mass public demonstrations. This led to a mass rally on East-Berlin's Alexanderplatz on 4 November [ 6 ] in which he spoke and called for reforms, including free elections. In December , he became a member of a special SED party session investigating official corruption and abuse of power.

Volcker kauder vs gregor gysi biography

In an interview conducted in , Gysi recalled that in late he had become the attorney for several of the people who were arrested in the first early public protests. As such he became known to leading figures in the Artistic and Cultural unions and was contacted by a group of actresses about the legality of a large demonstration. He recalls having examined the laws and advising them that they could apply for such a permit from the police and the worst outcome would be that their request could be denied, but they would not be breaking any law or doing anything illegal.

He further recalls assisting the group in requesting and completing the appropriate forms and paperwork required for such a permit. Gysi was elected as the party's chairman. In his first speech, Gysi admitted that the SED had brought the country to ruin, repudiating everything it had done since He declared that the party needed to adopt a new form of socialism.

To that end, he immediately set about transforming the SED into a democratic socialist party. Before the year was out, the last hardliners in the SED leadership had either resigned or been pushed out. Gysi remained as party chairman, and in March was elected to the Volkskammer in the first free election of that body , serving there until it was dissolved upon German reunification on 3 October In the first post-reunification all-German elections, he was elected to the Bundestag from Berlin's Hellersdorf—Marzahn constituency , and served there until He remained chairman of the PDS through , and then from to served as chairman of the party's parliamentary group.

He denied these allegations, and the matter was largely dropped due to his parliamentary immunity. However, the allegations were raised again in , and this time the Bundestag voted to revoke his immunity and proceed with an investigation. In , the Bundestag's immunity committee concluded that Gysi had been a collaborator with the Stasi from to under the name IM Notar , and fined him 8, Deutsche Mark.

Despite the affair, he retained his seat in the Bundestag in the elections. In , he resigned as chairman of the PDS's parliamentary group, but continued as an active member of the party. He emphasised practical issues and advocated the reinstitution of some of what he sees as the better aspects of East Germany's system, such as extended child-care hours and a longer school day.

After a scandal involving his use of airline " bonus miles " he had acquired on trips as a Bundestag member, he resigned on 31 July from the Berlin city government. The resignation was a blow to his public "can-do" image, but he has recovered from that to some extent in the wake of increasing public opposition to a number of new policies of the federal government, like the Hartz reforms lowering unemployment benefits to the levels of mere subsistence welfare, which he strongly opposes.

In late, he survived brain surgery and a heart attack. Formerly a heavy smoker, Gysi quit smoking as a result of surviving the heart attack. Gysi remained the PDS's undisputed front man in many people's minds and continued to appear in public. In , Gysi wrote his analysis on the contemporary Ukraine crisis in the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs , where he described similarities between the United States and Russia in their transgressions of international law.

Gysi calls for "a new Ostpolitik " to prevent war and promote "democracy and freedom in Russia". He described the current German government as "blackmailers". Gysi is an outspoken supporter of the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly , an organisation which campaigns for democratic reformation of the United Nations.

This is due to his belief in the need for "functioning and democratically legitimate global politics. Under longstanding German law, a party can bypass the electoral threshold by winning three constituency seats. Gysi is one of the most present politicians in German entertainment media. He regularly appears on political entertainment talk shows and is host of conversation programs himself.

In , Gregor Gysi stated to the Bundestag administration that he had received fees for almost 90 lectures, discussions and conversations. On average he has one appearance per week. He also earns money from jobs as lawyer and book publishing. Gysi continues to deny allegations, which first surfaced in , that he was a Stasi informant "inoffizieller Mitarbeiter" , though there are no doubts about their close cooperation.