Solveig Leo

Solveig Leo (* in November 1943 in the Sudetenland ) is a former farmer and mayor of the municipality of Banzkow for many years . At the age of 24, she was the youngest LPG chairwoman in the GDR at the time. She received high government awards in both the GDR and the Federal Republic.

Life

Leo was resettled with her brother and mother after the end of the war in 1945 from the Sudetenland to Pößneck in Thuringia . After attending the eight-year school at the time, Leo first completed an apprenticeship as a farmer at VEG Ludwigshof . This was followed by studies at the agricultural college in Weimar from 1961 to 1964 .

At the end of his studies, Leo and other fellow students were sent to the agricultural exhibition agra in Leipzig to explain new agricultural machinery there. There the then chairman of the LPG in Banzkow recruited young professionals. Although Leo already had a graduate contract for a job in Thuringia, she looked at the LPG in the Schwerin district. She dissolved the contract that had already been concluded and began in the Mecklenburg community. After a year she became a cattle brigadier and in the same year also a member of the SED .

In January 1968, Leo, at the age of 24, married and a young mother, was elected chairman of the LPG " Clara Zetkin ". At that time she was also a distance learning student at the University of Rostock . As a result, the LPG developed into one of the strongest in the Schwerin district.

Leo experienced as a prototype of the modern young woman in the GDR, similar to z. B. Frieda Sternberg or Margarete Müller and, in view of their achievements, increasing attention from politicians in Berlin and in the GDR media. In 1968 she spoke at the Xth German Farmers' Congress in Leipzig. In 1969 Solveig Leo, who was only 28 years old, was honored with the title Hero of Labor . In 1971 Leo was elected on the IX. Parliament of the FDJ for a few years in the office of the Central Council of the FDJ. At the same time, she was a member of the FDJ district leadership in Schwerin for many years.

In the course of the further centralization of GDR agriculture, Leo became chairwoman of the Agricultural Industry Association (AIV) Lewitz . This included 12 LPGs and 3 VEGs, which together farmed 31,000 hectares of land. There were also 62,000 cattle and 36,000 pigs. Leo headed the AIV until the political change in the GDR, only to have to wind it up afterwards. After that, Leo initially worked briefly as a consultant for organic farming. She then found employment in a successor company to the AIV until 2004.

At the same time, Solveig Leo was elected mayor of Banzkow in 1992 as a candidate for the then PDS . She was directly elected to this office three times until 2009 and thus had a significant impact on the post-reunification development of the community. Thanks to her performance, Banzkow was honored with one of only eight gold medals in the national competition Our village should be more beautiful in 2008. On April 12, 2001, she received the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon for her commitment to local politics. In 2011 she was honored with the Order of Merit of the State of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania .

Web links

• Literature about Solveig Leo in the Landesbibliographie MV

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Office of the Federal President