Horst Gramlich

Horst Gramlich (* 31 March 1938 in Antonufka / Ukraine ) is a German politician of the SPD and former mayor of Potsdam .

Life

Horst Gramlich grew up in Potsdam and did an apprenticeship as a banker . He then attended a business school and studied economics at the Berlin School of Economics . He finished his studies with a degree in finance. He received his doctorate from the same university in 1972 . He worked as a research assistant at the German Academy for Political Science and Law in Potsdam-Babelsberg and had been a lecturer for economic planning and plan fulfillment since 1969 .

politics

During the fall of 1989, Gramlich became a member of the newly founded SDP of the GDR , which renamed itself to SPD on January 13, 1990 and merged with the West German SPD on September 26, 1990.

In the local elections in May 1990 he became the first mayor after the fall of the Berlin Wall . As Lord Mayor, he headed a coalition made up of the SPD, CDU and parts of the citizens' movement, which had very different opinions on everyday issues on many points. General issues in Potsdam and in many other regions of the former GDR were growing unemployment, the housing shortage, investment barriers, real estate speculation and an out-of-date bureaucracy. Special topics in Potsdam during this time included a controversial gas-powered power plant that Gramlich advocated in 1993. In addition, the 1000th anniversary of the city and the successful application of Potsdam for the Federal Horticultural Show in 2001 fell during his term of office . In addition, the city center, to which u. a. the Dutch Quarter also belongs, and Babelsberg is designated as a redevelopment area.

In the local elections in Brandenburg on December 5, 1993, his challenger from the PDS Rolf Kutzmutz recorded a clear win in the first ballot with 45.3% of the votes compared to 29.3% for Gramlich as incumbent. In the runoff election two weeks later, the result turned in favor of Gramlich, who then received 54.7% of the vote, as he was also able to reach voters who had voted for candidates who had subsequently dropped out in the first ballot. In the new term of office, the mayor relied on a de facto coalition of the SPD and PDS.

On December 23, 1997, the Citizens' Alliance, in conjunction with the campaign against conscription and compulsory service, today Die Andere, announced that Horst Gramlich would be voted out of office. In February 1998 the CDU, the Greens and others joined. In a referendum on May 17, 1998, he was voted out as mayor with 87.5% of the vote. According to the Berliner Zeitung, his political opponents accused him of "weakness in decision-making, lack of leadership qualities, inability to advertise the city", as well as being "distant from the citizen" and "unworldly". Until the referendum, he was criticized by SPD City Councilor Detlef Kaminski because of the overburdening he was accused of in the context of the “Baufilz Affair” . His deputy and finance city councilor Hans-Joachim Bosse took over the official business in Potsdam on a temporary basis. Gramlich's elected successor was the then Brandenburg Environment Minister Matthias Platzeck .

On his 70th birthday in 2008, Gramlich was honored with Mayor Jann Jakobs by a delegation from the state capital Potsdam . Jakobs said to Gramlich: “Politics - and you have learned that very clearly - is not always fair business. Sometimes it also inflicts wounds that can be felt for a long time. "

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Andrea Beyerlein: Platzeck and Gramlich - it's like day and night. Berliner Zeitung, May 13, 1998, accessed on August 5, 2013 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Press release from the City of Potsdam on the occasion of Dr. Horst Gramlich
3. ↑ Election results on www.potsdam.de  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 736 kB)  
4. ↑ ^{a b} Horst Gramlich , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 30/1998 of July 13, 1998, in the Munzinger archive , accessed on January 27, 2009 ( beginning of the article freely available)
5. ↑ Jan Brunzlow: Vision and illusion of the responsible citizen. 15 years of the Citizens' Alliance in Potsdam: remembering eventful times of civic engagement. Potsdam Latest News pnn.de, May 8, 2008, accessed on August 5, 2013 . 
6. ↑ Potsdam Chronicle 1990 to 2003 ( Memento of the original from August 31, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  

literature

• Short biography for:  Gramlich, Horst . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .