Hans-Dietrich Genscher

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Hans-Dietrich Genscher (born March 21, 1927) is a German politician and member of the Free Democratic Party (FDP). He was Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1974-1992, making him Germany's longest serving Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Political career 1.3 Reunification efforts 1.4 Career after politics 2 See also

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Genscher was born at Reideburg (Saalkreis), near Halle, in what later became East Germany. At a young age, Genscher joined the Hitler Youth and later served as a Luftwaffenhelfer in the Army from 1943 to 1945. As an adult, he was also a member of the NSDAP, despite regulations encouraging active duty military members to avoid holding membership in political organizations (these regulations were widely ignored in the later days of Adolf Hitler's Germany).

At the end of the Second World War, Genscher briefly became an American and British prisoner of war. After World War II, he studied law and economics at the universities of Halle and Leipzig (1946-1949) and joined the East German Liberal Democratic Party (LDPD) in 1946.

[edit] Political career

In 1952, Genscher fled to West Germany, where he joined the Free Democratic Party (FDP). He passed his second state examination in law in Hamburg in 1954 and became a solicitor in Bremen.

In 1965, he was elected to the West German parliament for the first time from Bremen, a seat he would hold until his retirement in 1998. After serving in several party offices, he was appointed Minister of the Interior by Chancellor Willy Brandt, whose Social Democratic Party was in coalition with the FDP, in 1969; in 1974, he became foreign minister and Vice Chancellor).

In the SPD-FDP coalition, he helped shape Brandt's policy of deescalation with the communist East, commonly known as Ostpolitik, which was continued under Helmut Schmidt after Brandt's resignation in 1974.

Still, Genscher was one of the FDP's driving forces when, in 1982, the party switched sides from its coalition with the SPD to support the CDU/CSU in their Constructive Vote of No Confidence to have Helmut Schmidt replaced with Helmut Kohl as Chancellor. Despite the great controversy that accompanied this switch, he remained one of the most popular politicians in West Germany. He retained his posts as foreign minister and vice chancellor through German reunification and until 1992, when he stepped down for health reasons. Some believe his 18-year tenure as foreign minister made him the longest-serving holder of such an office anywhere in the world.

[edit] Reunification efforts

He is mostly respected for his efforts that helped end the Cold War, to lead to German reunification, when, in eastern Europe, the communist government toppled; for example, he visited Poland to meet Lech Wałęsa as early as 1988. One event remembered by many is his September 30, 1989 speech from the balcony of the German embassy in Prague, in whose court yard thousands of East German citizens had assembled to flee to the west, when he announced that he had reached an agreement with the communist government that the refugees could leave: "We have come to you to tell you that today, your departure ..." (German: "Wir sind zu Ihnen gekommen, um Ihnen mitzuteilen, daß heute Ihre Ausreise ..."). After these words, the speech drowned in cheers.

Genscher was also an active participant in the further development of the European Union, taking active part in the Single European Act Treaty negotiations in the mid 1980s, as well as the joint publication of the Genscher-Colombo plan with Italian Prime Minister Colombo which advocated further integration and deepening of relations in the European Union towards a more federalist European State.

[edit] Career after politics

Genscher did not run for reelection in 1998. Since then, he has been active as a lawyer, in a public company, and in bona-fide international relations organizations. He founded his own Hans-Dietrich Genscher Consult GmbH in 2000.

[edit] See also

• Politics of Germany
• History of Germany since 1945

Preceded by Walter Scheel	Foreign Minister of Germany 1974–1982	Succeeded by Helmut Schmidt
Preceded by Helmut Schmidt	Foreign Minister of Germany 1982–1992	Succeeded by Klaus Kinkel
Preceded by Walter Scheel	Vice Chancellor 1974–1982	Succeeded by Egon Franke
Preceded by Egon Franke	Vice Chancellor 1982–1992	Succeeded by Jürgen Wilhelm Möllemann