Gerhard Schürer

Gerhard Schürer (1982)

Paul Gerhard Schürer (born April 14, 1921 in Zwickau , † December 22, 2010 in Berlin ) was a German politician ( SED ). From 1965 to 1989 he was chairman of the State Planning Commission at the GDR Council of Ministers and a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED .

Life

education

After attending elementary school, Schürer completed an apprenticeship as a machinist from 1936 to 1939 and did military service until 1945, most recently as a flight instructor at the Klotzsche Air War School near Dresden . After the war he worked as a locksmith and driver. From 1947 to 1951 he attended the industrial administration school in Mittweida .

Political party

In 1948 he joined the SED, attended the state party school in 1952 and worked in the planning and finance department of the SED's central committee until 1955 . After attending the party college of the CPSU in Moscow , he was deputy head of department from 1958 to 1960 and head of the planning, finance and technical development department of the SED Central Committee until 1962, as well as a member of the Economic Commission at the Politburo of the SED Central Committee. From 1962 he was deputy head and from 1965 head of the State Planning Commission and member of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, and since 1966 he has been co-chair of the joint government commission for economic and scientific-technical cooperation between the GDR and the USSR.

Since 1963 Schürer was a member of the Central Committee of the SED, since 1967 a member of the People's Chamber and since 1973 a candidate for the Politburo of the SED Central Committee . However, he only became a full member of the Politburo after the fall of the Wall - a few weeks before it was dissolved.

Controversies with Günter Mittag and Erich Honecker

In the final phase of the GDR he could not prevail against the powerful Central Committee Economic Secretary Günter Mittag . When Schürer recognized that the GDR economy was being overwhelmed with the aim of uniting economic and social policy and addressed the impending inability to pay foreign currency in the SED Politburo , Erich Honecker called him a "saboteur", which was one of the most serious accusations in socialist and communist parties .

Schürer report

Together with Gerhard Beil , Ernst Höfner , Arno Donda and Alexander Schalk-Golodkowski he wrote the Politburo template "analysis of the economic situation of the GDR with Conclusions" for the Politburo meeting on 30 October 1989 by the Secretary General of the Central Committee of the SED, Egon Krenz in order had been given. In the proposal, the imminent insolvency of the GDR was inferred from the high national debt towards the western countries . The statements on foreign exchange debt ( foreign debt ) and the solvency of the GDR were relativized in later publications. According to the figures of the Bank for International Settlements and the Bundesbank, the foreign exchange liquidity was actually available in 1989 . According to the SED resolutions at that time, however, these assets, especially those of the widely ramified Commercial Coordination (KoKo) area as "foreign currency residents", were not included in the balance sheet of the Politburo bill, as Schürer explained in later publications.

turn

On November 7, 1989, the Stoph VI cabinet resigned as a whole. On 20./21. January 1990 Schürer was expelled from the SED-PDS . A case of “criminal infidelity to the detriment of socialist property” and “abuse of trust” was discontinued by the public prosecutor of the GDR . After his release from the pre- trial detention center after 18 days, Schürer worked, among other things, as a management consultant at Dussmann and the Bellinda stocking works.

honors and awards

Schürer received the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver in 1964 , in gold in 1971 and the Karl Marx Order in 1981 .

Writings & Interviews

• To some basic questions of the perspective plan and its implementation . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1967.
• Basic questions of scientifically based planning . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1968.
• On some questions in the 1973 National Economic Plan . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1972.
• On some problems in the implementation of the five-year plan from 1971 to 1975 adopted by the 8th Party Congress . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1973.
• The main tasks of the National Economic Plan 1974 and the way to its realization . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1974.
• The tasks in the further realization of socialist economic integration . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1975.
• Daring and lost. A German biography . 4th edition. Frankfurter Oder Editions Buchverlag, Frankfurt (Oder) 1998, ISBN 3-930842-15-7 .
• Daring and lost: a German biography . Contains the wording of the "Schürer paper", a conversation with Egon Krenz and an afterword by Herbert Graf. edition ost, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-360-01863-2 .
• Mr. Schürer has been interviewed twice. However, only brief excerpts of the interviews are available to the public. These sections can of witnesses portal on the side zeitzeugen-portal.de be considered. (See also the discussion page on the whereabouts of the interviews)

literature

• Hans-Hermann Hertle : The way to the bankruptcy of the GDR economy. The failure of the "unity of economic and social policy" using the example of the Schürer-Mittag controversy in the Politburo in 1988 . In: Germany Archive . No. 2 . Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1992, ISSN  0012-1428 .
• Daring and lost . In: Die Zeit , No. 37/1997
• Bernd-Rainer Barth , Helmut Müller-Enbergs :  Schürer, Gerhard Paul . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Lothar de Maizière : I want my children no longer to have to lie . Herder, Freiburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-451-30355-5 , pp. 98, 242, 244-245.
• Andreas Malycha: Unvarnished truths. A confidential conversation between Gerhard Schürer, chief planner of the GDR, with the Stasi about the economic policy of the SED in April 1978 . In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte . tape 59 , issue 2, March 30, 2011, p. 283-305 , doi : 10.1524 / vfzg.2011.0014 .
• Jörg Roesler : The so-called Schürer paper. Declaration of bankruptcy or prevented start of the second comprehensive economic reform in the GDR? Helle Panke, booklet on DDR history No. 152, Berlin 2020.

Web links

Commons : Gerhard Schürer  - Collection of Images

• Literature by and about Gerhard Schürer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Olaf Opitz and Wolfgang Stock : Honecker lived on credit. In: Focus . November 15, 1999.
• Obituaries:
  • Former GDR chief planner Schürer dead . In: Handelsblatt , December 25, 2010
  • Former GDR planning director Gerhard Schürer dead . In: Die Welt , December 25, 2010
• Gerhard Schürer , short excerpts from two interviews on zeitzeugen-portal.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Gerhard Schürer, Gerhard Beil, Alexander Schalck, Ernst Höfner and Arno Donda: Template for the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED. Analysis of the economic situation in the GDR with conclusions , October 30, 1989.
2. ↑ Gerhard Schürer, Gerhard Beil, Alexander Schalck, Ernst Höfner, Arno Donda: Analysis of the economic situation of the GDR with conclusions. Template for the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED. October 30, 1989. Retrieved November 9, 2015 . 
3. ↑ Armin Volze: On the foreign exchange debt of the GDR - origin, coping and consequences . In: Eberhard Kuhrt (Ed.): At the end of real socialism . On behalf of the Federal Ministry of the Interior. tape 4 . Leske + Budrich Verlag, Opladen 1999, ISBN 978-3-8100-2744-3 , p. 164 .
4. ↑ Gerhard Schürer: Planning and steering the economy in the GDR . In: Eberhard Kuhrt (Ed.): At the end of real socialism . On behalf of the Federal Ministry of the Interior. tape 4 . Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1999, ISBN 978-3-8100-2744-3 , pp. 74 .
5. ↑ Gerhard Schürer: Daring and Lost. A German biography . 4. edit Edition. Frankfurter Oder Editions Buchverlag, Frankfurt (Oder) 1998, ISBN 3-930842-15-7 , p. 197 ff. and 318 .
6. ↑ Exclusion. The Politburo in front of the party court
7. ↑ Daring and Lost . In: Die Zeit , No. 37/1997.
8. ↑ Berliner Zeitung , October 6, 1964, p. 6
9. ↑ Berliner Zeitung, April 28, 1971, p. 2.
10. ^ Karl Marx Order awarded , In: Neues Deutschland , April 14, 1981, p. 2