Edward Gierek

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Edward Gierek (1980)

Edward Gierek (born January 6, 1913 in Porąbka , today Sosnowiec , † July 29, 2001 in Cieszyn ) was a Polish politician. From 1970 until his dismissal in 1980 he was first secretary and thus party leader of the Polish United Workers' Party.

Life

1977: Erich Honecker and Edward Gierek on a visit to Frankfurt (Oder)

Edward's father died in 1917 while working in the Kazimierz-Juliusz coal mine . Gierek was a communist since his youth. Before the Second World War he lived temporarily in France ( Paris , Belfort , Ensisheim , Leforest ) and later as a worker in the province of Limburg in Belgium .

After returning to Poland in 1948, he quickly made a career in the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR). Since 1954 he was a member of the Central Committee . From 1957 to 1970 he gained a certain popularity as First Secretary of the PZPR Voivodeship Committee in Katowice , because of which he was appointed First Secretary of the PZPR after the fall of Władysław Gomułka after the December unrest on the Baltic coast in 1970 . His reign was characterized by an attempt to accelerate the modernization of the Polish economy and to improve contacts with Western countries. After initial successes, politics ultimately failed due to the unsuccessful repayment of the numerous foreign loans and the country's over-indebtedness, while the standard of living continued to fall. On September 5, 1980, after the rise of the Solidarność trade union , Gierek was deposed as First Secretary and expelled from the Central Committee in December. A year later he was also expelled from the party and briefly interned after General Wojciech Jaruzelski had imposed martial law .

However, many Poles still associate his name with the memory of a time of the supposed upswing. Its debt policy, which was not paid back until 2012, has often been criticized by economists. After 1989, many streets named after him were renamed, but a new street in Auby, France, received his name in 2018 as a protest. The ceremony was attended by the municipal authorities from Zagłębie Dąbrowskie and French communists.

Gierek's son Adam became a member of the European Parliament in 2004 .

Primary literature

  • Edward Gierek: Selected Speeches and Writings: 1971–1978. Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1979

literature

  • Dariusz stole : Złote lata PZPR: finanse partii w dekadzie Gierka . Warsaw 2008.

Web links

Commons : Edward Gierek  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Brockhaus, sv
  2. ^ Les communistes d'Auby sont fiers d'avoir participé à l'inauguration de la rue Edward GIEREK. (French)
personal data
SURNAME Gierek, Edward
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish politician, member of the Sejm and party leader of the PZPR
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Porąbka , today Sosnowiec
DATE OF DEATH July 29, 2001
Place of death Cieszyn