Lothar de Maiziere

Lothar de Maizière (Nordhausen, March 2, 1940) is a German politician, descendant of Huguenots. He is known for having been the last head of government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR).).

Biography

Born in Nordhausen (Thuringia), from 1959 to 1965 he studied Music (Viola) and from 1965 to 1975 he performed in various orchestras, among others in the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, later, from 1969 to 1975, he studied Law for correspondence, a career from which he graduated in 1975.

As a young man he joined the Christian Democratic Union of the GDR (CDU) and in 1989, after the fall of the historic leader Gerald Götting, de Maizière was elected new leader of the CDU. In the elections of March 1990, the first held without the monopoly of the SED, he was elected deputy in the Volkskammer or People's Chamber, and a month later the new Parliament elected him president of the Council of Ministers of the GDR.

After the unexpected success of the CDU in the elections, Lothar de Maizière formed a "grand coalition" along with other parties, such as the SPD or the liberals of the FDP. As head of Government, he was in charge of negotiating with Chancellor Helmut Kohl the terms of reunification with the Federal Republic of Germany. Since Maizière came to power, the process of reunification with West Germany accelerated considerably.

After the integration of the GDR into the FRG, he joined the Western CDU with his party and was appointed Federal Minister for Special Affairs of the Federal Government. He was accused of being an informal collaborator of the Stasi as the agent 'Czerni', and it was published that his personal file in the Stasi had been destroyed in December 1989. As a result of the enormous pressure on which he was subjected to, he resigned from all his positions in November 1991 and retired from public life.

He is the cousin of former CDU minister Thomas de Maizière.