Eberhard Schneider

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Eberhard Schneider (born August 29, 1941 in Großenhain in Saxony ) is a German political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe .

Life

Schneider attended elementary school in Großenhain from 1947 to 1955, and from 1955 to 1958 the Pestalozzi High School in Großenhain. Schneider opposed the Marxist-Leninist ideology in class and in letters to the editor to the editorial offices of GDR radio programs and showed its internal contradictions. He rejected an attempt at recruitment by the Ministry of State Security . Because of his resignation from the communist youth organization " Free German Youth " (FDJ) he was expelled from school in February 1958 and was no longer allowed to attend school in the GDR . Schneider justified his resignation from the FDJ in writing with the rejection of the Marxist-Leninist worldview of the youth organization. This was followed by interrogations by the People's Police , and his identity card was removed so that he was no longer allowed to leave his place of residence. The " Sächsische Zeitung ", the official SED newspaper of the Dresden district, wrote an article against him, naming his name. Without mentioning the name, the central communist organ “ Neues Deutschland ” criticized Schneider.

On August 12, 1958, Schneider managed to escape to the Federal Republic of Germany on his own.

From September 1958 to April 1961 he attended the advanced high school in Rüthen in Westphalia, where he passed his Abitur. He then studied political science, philosophy and theology at the Free University of Berlin and the University of Munich . In 1965 he received the Lic. Phil. in philosophy at the Philosophical University in Munich with the licensed thesis “Dialectics in the Lower Spiritual Area? Attempt at a critical presentation of the materialist dialectic according to the current state ”. In 1970 he was in philosophy at the University of Munich with the dissertation “'Unity' and 'Contrast' in Soviet philosophy. On the main law of materialistic dialectics “to the Dr. phil is doing his doctorate. In 1992 the habilitation in political science followed at the University of Hamburg with the habilitation thesis “The political functional elite of the GDR. An empirical study on the SED nomenclature ”.

From 1966 to 1970 he worked at the Institute for the Study of the USSR in Munich, which was part of the Radio Liberty Committee in Washington until its dissolution in 1971. From 1971 to mid-1976 Schneider was Eastern Europe advisor at the International Institute for Politics and Economics " Haus Rissen " in Hamburg. In those years "Haus Rissen" organized regular conferences and held political talks with important political representatives of the GDR and the USSR on behalf of the Federal Government. Schneider was heavily involved in these unofficial explorations - partly in East Berlin and Moscow. From 1971 to 1976 he held a lectureship in political science at the University of Hamburg. From mid-1976 to 2000, he worked at the Federal Institute for Eastern and International Studies (BIOst) in Cologne, which was responsible for advising the federal government and the German Bundestag on policy. At the end of 2000, the BIOst was dissolved by the federal government.

In the spring of 1982 Schneider predicted, as a result of his empirical study of the Soviet elite, that the then KGB boss Yuriy Andropov would be the successor to CPSU general secretary Leonid Brezhnev , which also happened after his death in November 1982. In January 1984 Schneider predicted that the relatively young Mikhail Gorbachev would be Andropov's successor, but that the Politburo members would first make the much older Konstantin Chernenko party leader, which happened in February 1984 with regard to Chernenko's and in March 1985 with regard to Gorbachev.

From 1993 to 1998 Schneider was a private lecturer in political science at the University of Siegen . From September to December 1994, Schneider worked as a program adviser for the founding of the Russian power party planned by the presidential administration. From 1996 to 2004 he was accredited as a correspondent at the Russian Foreign Ministry . In 1998 he became an adjunct professor for political science at the University of Siegen. From 2000 to August 2006 he continued the policy advice at the "German Institute for International Politics and Security" of the Science and Politics Foundation (SWP) in Berlin, which is assigned to the Federal Chancellery.

Schneider Advisory Board Member of the EU-Russia Center in Brussels since 2004. In May 2004 he gave guest lectures at the State University - School of Economics in Moscow on the European Union. Since 2009 he has been analyzing Russian domestic politics for the members of the German-Russian Forum on a monthly basis . Since 2010 he has been an expert at the West-Ost-Institut Berlin and a member of the Advisory Board of the “West-Ost-Report” magazine, Berlin.

When it comes to current developments in Russia, he regularly gives interviews in N24 , Deutsche Welle , BBC and in the First Russian TV Program as well as in the Russian radio stations " Echo Moskwy " and " Golos Rossii ".

Memberships

He is a member of the International Political Science Association (IPSA), the German-Russian Forum and the German Society for Eastern European Studies .

Publications

Schneider wrote ten books and over a hundred articles in German, Russian, American, British, Spanish, Italian and Dutch magazines and in anthologies.

Fonts

  • The DDR. History, politics, economy, society . Stuttgart, 1st ed. 1975, 5th ed. 1980 [In English: The GDR. The History, Politics, Economy and Society of East Germany, London 1976].
  • SED program and statute from 1976. Text, commentary, didactic aids . Opladen 1977.
  • “Unity” and “Opposition” in Soviet philosophy. About the main law of materialistic dialectic . Cologne 1978 (dissertation).
  • Brezhnev's new Soviet constitution. Commentary with the texts of the USSR basic laws from Lenin to Stalin to today. Stuttgart 1978.
  • The Soviet Union today. Current political, social and economic problems of the USSR . Frankfurt / Main, 1982.
  • Moscow's guideline for the year 2000. New version of the program and statute of the CPSU. Munich 1987.
  • The political elite of the GDR. An empirical study on the SED nomenclature . Opladen 1994 (habilitation thesis).
  • Russia on course for democracy? New parties, movements and unions in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus . Cologne 1994.
  • The political system of the Russian Federation. An introduction . 2nd, updated and expanded edition. Opladen / Wiesbaden 2001 (Russian edition: Političeskaja sistema Rossijskoj Federacii. Moscow 2002).
  • The political system of Ukraine. An introduction . Wiesbaden 2005.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schneider, Eberhard: If you were a student in the zone . In: Rüthener Hefte . Rüthen / Westf., 1960/61, issue 6, pp. 83-86.
  2. ↑ With a clear mind and a clear view . In: Sächsische Zeitung, February 22, 1958, p. 12.
  3. ↑ School in the middle of life . In: Neues Deutschland , September 22, 1958, p. 4.
  4. ^ "Gut Russische Kind" , in Spiegel, 47/1982
  5. ↑ Published: “The March Elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the Political Ranking of the Politburo Members”, Cologne, January 20, 1984 (= Current Analyzes of the Federal Institute for Eastern and International Studies, No. 3/1984).
  6. ^ Zunker, Albrecht, Science and Politics Foundation (SWP). Development history of an institution of policy-related research. Berlin 2007, with a chapter on the Federal Institute for Eastern and International Studies pp. 231–252.
  7. ^ "The disintegration of the USSR could not be prevented" Deutsche Welle, Focus Eastern Europe, April 28, 2011, "Russia's political atmosphere is changing" , Deutsche Welle, March 28, 2010, "Difficult search for war guilt" (five-day War between Georgia and Russia), Deutsche Welle, November 21, 2008.
personal data
SURNAME Schneider, Eberhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German political scientist and Eastern Europe expert
DATE OF BIRTH August 29, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Grossenhain