Gerd Gies

Gerd Gies, 1990 election campaign poster

Gies voting for the 1990 Bundestag election

Gerd Gies (right) with the FDP state chairman Gerd Brunner at the coalition talks in 1990

Gerd Gies (born May 24, 1943 in Stendal ) is a German politician ( CDU ) and was the first Prime Minister of the State of Saxony-Anhalt after it was re-established in 1990.

Life

Gies completed a degree in veterinary medicine and after his doctorate in 1973 worked as a veterinarian in various areas, most recently as senior veterinarian in the VEB Fleischkombinat Magdeburg, part of the slaughterhouse in Stendal.

GDR period until 1990

In 1970 he became a member of the GDR CDU and was CDU chairman in the Osterburg district from 1975 to 1979 . From 1987 to 1990 he held the same function for the party in the Stendal district .

After reunification, Gies reported that in 1987 he "broke away from socialism" and tried to change something "on a small scale". By observers of his work in Stendal before 1989, however, Gies was characterized as a “loyal follower” of the state power and as someone who “above all else had to be careful”. As a candidate in the local elections in May 1989 in the Altmark, he called for people to vote for the “peace policy of the GDR” “out of Christian responsibility”. Gies was a member of the organizational part of the Christian Peace Conference , which was used as a cover organization by the GDR State Security Ministry to polarize the peace movement in the GDR. According to Der Spiegel , he tried to prevent Stephan Krawczyk and Freya Klier from appearing at a church peace seminar by arguing that cabaret does not belong in the church. Gies wanted to replace the church peace movement's slogan "Create peace without weapons" with the SED slogan "Create peace without NATO weapons".

After 1990

In February 1990, the CDU Saxony-Anhalt was founded as the first CDU regional association in what was then the GDR , and Gies was its first chairman.

In the first free election to the People's Chamber on 18 March 1990 Gies was for the CDU in the Volkskammer elected. Although he was the top candidate for the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt on October 14, 1990, he initially fell victim to his own success because he was not a candidate in a constituency. The CDU had won all but one of the constituencies. No candidate on the state list came into play. However, due to the fact that Armin Kleinau, who was burdened with stasis, waived his mandate, Gies moved up to the constituent session of the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt .

From October 28, 1990, Gies was Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt. On July 4, 1991, he resigned after he was accused of having urged MPs with Stasi allegations to give up their state parliament mandate. As CDU state chairman, Gies was replaced by Werner Münch at the end of November 1991 and remained a member of the state parliament until 1998.

Then he was managing director of an engineering and planning company in Magdeburg and then switched to the energy industry. Gies was on the board of Electrabel Deutschland AG until 2003 . There he was CEO of the Energie SaarLorLux AG sales company (2000–2002). From 2009 to 2013 he was a representative for the company, now trading as GDF Suez Energie Deutschland AG , on the board of the Federal Association of New Energy Providers and Deputy Chairman there. Gies was elected 1st chairman of the Federal Association for Animal Welfare in 2014. In April 2019, Fred Willitzkat was elected to succeed the now 75-year-old Gies.

literature

• Helmut Müller-Enbergs : Short biography on:  Gies, Gerd . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Donald Lyko: Gerd Gies worked as a member of the Volkskammer in the German Unity Committee: “Politics was pursued more emotionally”. In: Volksstimme , March 21, 2015.

Web links

Commons : Gerd Gies  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Biography of Gerd Gies . In: Wilhelm H. Schröder : The members of the 10th People's Chamber of the GDR (Volkparl)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} CV of Dr. Gerd Gies (CDU). In: Sachsen-Anhalt.de (tabular curriculum vitae, PDF ).
2. ↑ Prime Minister: Believing power . In: Der Spiegel . No.  20 , 1991, p. 115-118 ( Online - May 13, 1991 ). "They tilt like dominoes" . In: Der Spiegel . No.  29 , 1991, pp. 78-80 ( online - 15 July 1991 ).
3. ↑ "Then he falls too" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 27 , 1991, pp. 28-30 ( online - 1 July 1991 ). Order from the fat. The Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt, Gies, eliminated party friends with the help of the Stasi . In: Der Spiegel . No.  10 , 1991, pp. 44-47 ( online - 4 March 1991 ).
4. ↑ Eberhard Löblich: What became of… Gerd Gies? In: Der Tagesspiegel , November 12, 1999.
5. ↑ organs. ( Memento from October 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: Bundesverband Neuer Energieanbieter.
6. ↑ A look at the BVT board. (PDF; 1.7 MB) In: Der Tierschutz 1/2019. Bundesverband Tierschutz, p. 8 , accessed on March 7, 2020 . 
7. ↑ bv_tierschutz: We are ?? - The board of the Federal Association of Animal Protection. In: Instagram . July 2, 2019, accessed March 7, 2020 .