Hinrich Kuessner

Hinrich Kuessner, 1990

Hinrich Kuessner (born April 29, 1943 in Gerdauen , East Prussia ) is a German politician ( SPD ). From 1994 to 1998 he was State Minister and from 1998 to 2002 President of the State Parliament in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and previously a member of the German Bundestag .

education and profession

After graduating from high school in Schwerin , Kuessner studied theology in Rostock and completed administrative training in Greifswald from 1973 to 1975 , where he was managing director of the Diakonisches Werk of the Greifswald regional church from 1979 to 1988 . Kuessner has been chairman of the German-African Cooperation Association since 2002

Political party

In September 1989 Kuessner joined the New Forum , in December 1989 the Social Democratic Party in the GDR .

At the same time, he headed the investigative committee of the Hanseatic City of Greifswald from 1989 to 1990 and was also treasurer of the GDR SPD in 1990.

MP

In the Volkskammer election on March 18, 1990 , he was elected to the first freely elected People's Chamber for the SPD and, after reunification, moved into the German Bundestag in the 1990 Bundestag election . There he was a member of the budget committee and from 1993 chairman of the SPD parliamentary group in the investigative committee of the Treuhandanstalt.

In 1994 he decided not to run for the Bundestag again. Instead, he ran for the state parliament of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , in which he was elected on October 16, 1994.

After the victory of the SPD under Harald Ringstorff in the state elections on September 27, 1998 and the election of Ringstorff as prime minister, Kuessner was elected as state president.

In 2001, Kuessner ran for the office of Lord Mayor in Greifswald, but was defeated by the CDU candidate Arthur König with 48.9% of the votes in the second ballot .

In 2002 Kuessner decided not to run again for the state parliament and accordingly left office with the constituent session of the fourth state parliament of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in October 2002.

From 2004 to 2009 Kuessner was a member of the Greifswald citizenship, but decided not to run again in the 2009 local elections.

Public offices

In the grand coalition formed after the state elections on October 16, 1994, under Prime Minister Berndt Seite ( CDU ), Kuessner became Minister of Social Affairs in Cabinet Seite II and, after Harald Ringstorff's resignation in 1996, also took over the post of Deputy Prime Minister. He resigned both offices after his election as President of the State Parliament in October 1998.