Michael Galley

Michael Galley (born November 14, 1944 in Schwerin ; † May 4, 2004 in Gera ) was the first Lord Mayor of the city of Gera after the political change in the GDR from 1990 to 1993 .

Career

The pastor's son Galley studied law in Naumburg and Berlin. He then worked as a lawyer in various large companies and from 1983 in East Berlin on the main board of the CDU of the GDR . In autumn 1989 he became chairman of the CDU in the Gera district . On May 6, 1990, the first and only free local elections took place in the GDR; on May 23, 1990, Galley was elected mayor by the newly elected Gera city council with 52 votes against 47.

Galley's tenure was shaped by the profound changes in the first years after German reunification. At the municipal level, this included, for example, the restructuring of the city's administrative apparatus, the establishment of housing associations, the reorganization of the health system and the complete redesign of the city's school network. At the end of 1990, Wismut, one of the largest employers in the region, stopped uranium mining in the Ronneburg region . Other large companies in Gera such as VEB Electronics, VEB Modedruck or the machine tool factory WEMA Union went into liquidation by the mid-1990s .

After an 81-page file of the Ministry of State Security became known, Michael Galley announced on October 27, 1993 his resignation as Lord Mayor on November 15 of the same year. Andreas Mitzenheim was elected as his successor . Galley withdrew from politics and worked as a lawyer in Gera. In 1996 he left the CDU.

literature

• Günter Domkowsky: Lord Mayor of the City of Gera. Events - anecdotes - interesting facts. Publishing house Dr. Frank GmbH, Gera 2007, ISBN 978-3-934805-31-6 .
• Short biography for:  Galley, Michael . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .