Wolfgang Berghofer

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Wolfgang Berghofer (1986)
Wolfgang Berghofer (2015)

Wolfgang Berghofer (born February 25, 1943 in Bautzen ) is a former FDJ functionary and SED politician. From 1986 to 1990 he was Lord Mayor of Dresden .

Life

Born as a war child in Upper Lusatia, Wolfgang Berghofer grew up alone with his mother and grandparents. The parents divorced after the end of the war, the mother usually lived separately from the son in West Berlin and stayed there for good after the Wall was built.

Berghofer completed an apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer from 1959 to 1962, worked in the profession until 1964 and was a district sports teacher in Bautzen and deputy chairman of the DTSB , district association Bautzen until 1967 . He joined the FDJ in 1957 and the SED in 1964. In 1969/70 he was a student at the FDJ youth college "Wilhelm Pieck" on Lake Bogensee. From 1968 he was a full-time FDJ functionary, since 1970 at the Central Council of the FDJ, where he was initially jointly responsible for work in the West , later he switched to the organization of major events and was on the organizing committee of the Xth World Festival in 1973 in Berlin under the main department of major events, department head “Tribunal “As well as deputy head of the office for the preparation of the World Festival of Youth and Students in Havana . In 1978 he received the Order of Labor Banner . From 1971 to 1981 Berghofer worked as an unofficial employee "Falk" for the Ministry for State Security . From 1978 he was head of department in the Central Council of the FDJ. 1983 to 1985 he completed a distance learning course at the University of Rostock to become a historian.

From 1986 to 1990 he was the successor of Gerhard Schill mayor of Dresden and member of the district assembly. In 1987 he signed the contract between Hamburg and Dresden with Klaus von Dohnanyi and received the Patriotic Order of Merit despite sharp criticism from the SED Politburo.

During the turning point and peaceful revolution in 1989/90, Berghofer was considered one of the few known reform socialists. In October 1989 he was one of the initiators of the Dresden Dialogue with the opposition group of 20 and significantly prevented reprisals against GDR opposition members. In December 1989 he became deputy chairman of the SED / PDS , from which he resigned in January 1990 under protest. He saw in the SED / PDS a party that did not have the strength to fundamentally change. When the new Social Democratic Party in the GDR refused to accept former SED members, his political ambitions ended abruptly and he switched to business as a manager. In 1990/91 he was first general representative for the Häussler Group, Stuttgart , and has since worked as an independent management consultant in Berlin , currently he works for the aircraft supply industry.

In 2001 he ran as a non-party member in the second ballot for the office of Lord Mayor of Dresden and achieved 12.2 percent.

A few days earlier he presented his book Meine Dresdner Jahre , in which he explains his view of the functioning of the "GDR / SED system", but spared former SED functionaries. In his opinion, for example, the department heads of the Central Committee of the SED , the real and real GDR decision-makers, are being allowed to slip away from their responsibility.

Wolfgang Berghofer is chairman of the board of the company pension schemes for companies and municipalities eV (BVUK). He organizes and holds specialist lectures on company pension schemes.

Private

Wolfgang Berghofer lives in Berlin. He is married and has a son and a daughter.

Participation in election fraud

In 1990, Berghofer was investigated for the manipulation of the GDR local elections on May 7, 1989 . The Dresden District Court sentenced him in 1992 for “election fraud and incitement to vote falsification” to one year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 36,000 DM. After Berghofer's appeal, the Federal Court of Justice upheld the verdict. Even a constitutional complaint was unsuccessful for him. Berghofer is one of the few top SED politicians who openly admitted electoral fraud in the GDR.

Publications

  • Contribution in Peter Neumann (Ed.): Dreaming forbidden. Current statements from the GDR. Lamuv, Göttingen 1990, ISBN 3-88977-234-X .
  • My years in Dresden. Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-360-00951-7 .
  • No piece in the game of chess. How I experienced the "turning point". Edition Ost, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-360-01854-0 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Wolfgang Berghofer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Berliner Zeitung , April 28, 1978, p. 7
  2. ↑ See Reuter / Müller-Enbergs: Berghofer, Wolfgang .
  3. ↑ Reinhard Höppner: You have to try miracles. The way to German unity. Berlin 2009, p. 52 f.
  4. ↑ Patrick Moreau, Viola Neu: The PDS between left-wing extremism and left-wing populism. Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, 1994, ISBN 3-930163-31-4 , p. 9
  5. ↑ Sven Felix Kellerhoff : The historian Wilke explains why Berghofer's memories bring Gysi and Modrow into distress. Die Welt , April 17, 2007.
predecessor Office successor
Gerhard Schill Lord Mayor of Dresden
1986–1990 		Herbert Wagner
personal data
SURNAME Berghofer, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SED), FDJ functionary and Lord Mayor of Dresden
DATE OF BIRTH February 25, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Bautzen