1.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
2.
Party of Democratic Socialism (Germany)
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The Party of Democratic Socialism was a democratic socialist political party in Germany active between 1989 and 2007. It was the successor to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. From 1990 through to 2005, the PDS had been seen as the party of the East. On 16 June 2007, the two merged to form a new party called The Left. The party had many progressive policies, including support for legalisation of same-sex marriage. Internationally, the Left Party. PDS was a co-founder of the Party of the European Left and was the largest party in the European United Left–Nordic Green Left group in the European Parliament. By the time of a party conference on 16 December 1989. During the second session the party accepted a proposal from Gysi, who had become party chairman earlier in the month, Gysi felt a name change was necessary to distance the reformed party from its repressive past. Above all Schumanns speech opened the way for the party to reinvent itself, using a phrase that was much quoted. A brief transitional period as the SED/PDS followed, by the end of 1989, the last hardline members of the partys Central Committee had either resigned or been pushed out, followed in 1990 by 95% of the SEDs 2.3 million members. On 4 February 1990, the party was renamed the PDS. However, neo-Marxist and communist minority factions continued to exist, by the time the party had formally renamed itself the PDS, it had expelled most of the remaining prominent Communist-era leaders from its ranks—including Honecker and Krenz. This was not enough to save the party when it faced the voters for the first time in the 1990 East German elections—the first and only free elections held in East Germany. The PDS had experience as a coalition partner in two federal states —Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania— where it co-governed until 2006 with the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Political responsibility has burnished the Lefts reputation as a pragmatic, rather than ideological party and it remained strong in local government in eastern Germany, with more than 6,500 town councillors and 64 elected mayors. In the first all-German elections in 1990, the PDS won only 2. 4% of the nationwide vote, however, a one-time exception to Germanys electoral law allowed eastern-based parties to qualify for representation if they won five percent of the vote in the former East Germany. As a result, the PDS entered the Bundestag with 17 deputies led by Gysi, one of Germanys most charismatic, however, it was only reckoned as a group within the Bundestag, and not a full-fledged parliamentary fraction. In the 1994 federal election, in spite of an anti-communist Red Socks campaign by the then-ruling Christian Democrats aimed at scaring off eastern voters, more importantly, Gysi was reelected from his Berlin seat, and three other PDS members were elected from eastern districts
3.
The Left (Germany)
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The Left, also commonly referred to as the Left Party, is a democratic socialist and left-wing populist political party in Germany. The party was founded in 2007 as the merger of the Party of Democratic Socialism, since mid-2012, its co-chairs have been Katja Kipping and Bernd Riexinger. Its parliamentary group is the third largest among the four groups in the German Bundestag, the Left is a founding member of the Party of the European Left, and is the largest party in the European United Left–Nordic Green Left group in the European Parliament. According to official party figures, the Left Party had 63,784 registered members as of December 2013, after protests, the party was forced to give up its monopoly of power on 1 December 1989. Honeckers successor, Egon Krenz, resigned two days later, and Gysi was named party chairman, by the end of 1989, the last hardline members of the partys Central Committee had either resigned or been pushed out. In 1990, 95% of SEDs 2.3 million members had left the party, by the time of a special congress in December 1989, the party was no longer a Marxist–Leninist party, though neo-Marxist and communist minority factions continued to be part of the party. At the congress, the party adopted a program of democratic reform, Gysi remained its leader, and soon became one of the most well-known faces within German politics. By the end of February, the PDS had expelled most of the remaining prominent Communist-era leaders from its ranks - including Honecker and Krenz. However, this was not enough to save the party when it faced the voters at the 18 March general election, the first free election in East Germany. The party came in a distant third with only 16. 4% of the vote, behind the East German branches of the West German-based Christian Democratic Union and Social Democratic Party. The two major parties formed a coalition, led by the Alliance for Germany, built around the East German CDU. In the first all-German Bundestag elections in 1990, the PDS won only 2. 4% of the nationwide vote, under normal circumstances, a party must win at least five percent of the vote to qualify for mixed member proportional representation in the Bundestag. However, for the 1990 elections only, an exception allowed eastern-based parties to qualify for list representation if they won at least five percent of the vote in the former East Germany. Also, Gysi was elected from a Berlin-area district, representatives elected directly through the First Vote are always guaranteed a seat regardless of their partys national vote. As a result, the PDS entered the 1990 Bundestag with 17 deputies led by Gysi, in the 1994 federal election the PDS managed to increase its share of the vote to 4.4 percent. e. More importantly, Gysi was reelected from his Berlin-area seat, and this allowed the PDS to qualify for MMP even though it came up just short of the five percent threshold. The PDS thus entered the new Bundestag with a caucus of 30 deputies. In 1998, the party reached its highest result to date, with 37 deputies elected on 5. 1% of the national vote, gysis resignation in 2000 after losing a policy debate with leftist factions brought conflict to the PDS
4.
Bundestag
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The Bundestag is a constitutional and legislative body at the federal level in Germany. For its similar function, it is described as a lower house of parliament along the lines of the US House of Representatives. The German constitution, however, does not define the Bundestag, since 1999 it has met in the Reichstag Building in Berlin. Norbert Lammert is the current President of the Bundestag, Members of the Bundestag are usually elected every four years by all adult German citizens in a mixed system of constituency voting and list voting. There are currently 631 seats, however, one – belonging to the CDU – remains vacant. The Election Day, however, can be if the Federal Chancellor loses a vote of no confidence. In the 19th century the name Bundestag was the designation for the assembly of the sovereigns and mayors of the Monarchies. Its seat was in the Free City of Frankfurt on the Main, two decades later, the current parliament building was erected. The Reichstag delegates were elected by direct and equal male suffrage, the Reichstag did not participate in the appointment of the Chancellor until the parliamentary reforms of October 1918. After this the Reichstag met only rarely, usually at the Krolloper following the Reichstag fire starting in 1933 to unanimously rubber-stamp the decisions of the government and it last convened on 26 April 1942. With the new constitution of 1949, the Bundestag was established as the new German parliament, the Bundeshaus in Bonn is the former Parliament Building of Germany. The sessions of the German Bundestag were held there from 1949 until its move to Berlin in 1999, today it houses the International Congress Centre Bundeshaus Bonn and in the north areas the branch office of the Bundesrat. The southern areas became part of German offices for the United Nations in 2008, the former Reichstag building housed a history exhibition and served occasionally as a conference center. The Reichstag building was occasionally used as a venue for sittings of the Bundestag and its committees and the Bundesversammlung. In 2005, an aircraft crashed close to the German parliament. It was then decided to ban private air traffic over Central Berlin, together with the Bundesrat, the Bundestag is the legislative branch of the German political system. The committees play a prominent role in this process, Plenary sessions provide a forum for members to engage in public debate on legislative issues before them, but they tend to be well attended only when significant legislation is being considered. This check on executive power can be employed through binding legislation, public debates on government policy, investigations, for example, the Bundestag can conduct a question hour, in which a government representative responds to a previously submitted written question from a member
5.
Sahra Wagenknecht
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Sahra Wagenknecht is a German left-wing politician, economics graduate, author and publicist. She is a member of the National Committee of the Left Party and, since May 2010, since 2009, she has been a member of the Bundestag. Wagenknecht was born on 16 July 1969 in the East German city of Jena and her father is Iranian and her mother, who worked for a state-run art distributor, is German. She was cared for primarily by her grandparents until 1976, when she, while in Berlin, she became a member of the Free German Youth. She completed her Abitur exams in 1988 and joined the Socialist Unity Party in early 1989, from 1990 she studied Philosophy and New German Literature as an undergraduate in Jena and Berlin but dropped out. She then enrolled as a student at the University of Groningen where she earned an MA in 1996 for a thesis on the young Karl Marxs interpretation of Hegel. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the transformation of the SED into the Party of Democratic Socialism and she also joined the PDSs Communist Platform, an orthodox Marxist faction. In the 1998 German federal election, Wagenknecht ran as the PDS candidate in a district of Dortmund, following the 1999 European elections, she was elected as a PDS representative to the European Parliament. Among her duties in the parliament is serving on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Delegation, following the merger of the PDS and the WASG that formed the Left Party, Wagenknecht considered campaigning for the position of party vice-chair. However, party leaders such as Lothar Bisky and Gregor Gysi objected to the idea primarily because of her sympathies for the former German Democratic Republic. Following the controversy, she announced that she would not run for the post, Wagenknecht successfully contested a seat in the 2009 federal election in North Rhine-Westphalia. She became the Left Partys spokesperson for economic politics in the Bundestag, on 15 May 2010 she was at last elected vice-president of the Left Party with 75. 3% of the vote. At the start of 2012 it emerged that Wagenknecht was one of 27 Left Party Bundestag members kept under surveillance by the security services. Wagenknecht has argued that the Left Party must pursue radical and anticapitalist goals, thereby remaining distinct from the more moderate Social Democratic Party and Green Party. She has criticized the Left Partys participation in coalition governments, especially the Berlin state government and she has expressed strong support for the rise of left-wing leaders in Latin America, such as Hugo Chávez and SYRIZAs 2015 electoral victory in Greece. She serves as a spokesperson for the Venezuela Avanza solidarity network, Wagenknecht married businessman Ralph-Thomas Niemeyer in May 1997. However, on 12 November 2011, politician Oskar Lafontaine stated publicly that he, at the time, Wagenknecht and Lafontaine had already separated from their respective spouses, and on 22 December 2014, they married. Reichtum ohne Gier, Wie wir uns vor dem Kapitalismus retten, Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2016, ISBN 978-3-5935-0516-9
6.
Stralsund
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Stralsund, is a Hanseatic town in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is located at the Southern coast of the Strelasund, a sound of the Baltic Sea separating the island of Rügen from the mainland, the Strelasund Crossing with its two bridges and several ferry services connects Stralsund with Rügen. The Western Pomeranian town has been the capital of the Vorpommern-Rügen district since the 2011 district reforms and it is the fourth-largest city of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and, together with Greifswald, Stralsund forms an Oberzentrum, one of four high-level urban centers of the region. Stralsund was founded in 1234 and was one of the most prospering members of the medieval Hanseatic League, since 2002, Stralsunds old town with its rich heritage is honored as a UNESCO World Heritage, along with Wismar in Mecklenburg. The town of Stralsund is located in northeastern Germany in the region of Western Pomerania in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and its annual precipitation is 656 mm and comparatively low, falling within the lowest third of all precipitation values in Germany. The driest month is February, the most precipitation falls in July, the precipitation varies moderately across the year, at only 40% of weather stations in Germany are there lower seasonal variations. The town lies on the sound of Strelasund, a strait of the Baltic Sea, Stralsund is located close to the Western Pomerania Lagoon Area National Park. Stralsunds town borough includes municipal forest and three municipal ponds (the Knieperteich, Frankenteich and Moorteich, the three ponds and the Strelasund lend the Old Town, the original settlement site and historic center of the town, a protected island ambience. The highest point of the town is the Galgenberg on its western approaches, the towns territory covers an area of 38.97 km², which makes Stralsund, with its nearly 58,000 inhabitants one of the most densely populated towns in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The borough of the Hanseatic town of Stralsund is divided into as follows, The town also possesses estates in the area as well as on the islands of Rügen, Hiddensee. Larger towns or cities in the area are Greifswald and Rostock. In the local area around Stralsund there are also the towns of Barth, many of the smaller villages in the vicinity, like Prohn or Negast, have grown sharply after 1990 as a result of the influx of those living or working in Stralsund. In the Middle Ages the Stralsund area formed part of the West Slavic Principality of Rügen, at that time the Dänholm isle and fishing village, both at the site of the latter town, were called Strale or Stralow, Polabian for arrow. The full Polabian name is Strzałów, the village also had a ferry to the island of Rügen. In 1168 the Principality of Rügen became part of Kingdom of Denmark, in the course of German Ostsiedlung, many German settlers, gentry and merchants were invited to settle in the principality, and they eventually populated the Strale settlement. Merchants from other countries as well as locals were attracted to the area, the Danish navy used the isle as well. When the settlement had grown to size, prince Wizlaw I of Rügen granted Lübeck law to our town Stralow in 1234. In 1240, when the prince gave additional land to the town, the success of the settlement challenged the powerful Free City of Lübeck, which burnt Stralsund down in 1249
7.
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
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Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is a federal state in northern Germany. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is the sixth largest German state by area, and the least densely populated, three of Germanys fourteen national parks are in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, in addition to several hundred nature conservation areas. Major cities include Rostock, Schwerin, Neubrandenburg, Stralsund, Greifswald, Wismar, the University of Rostock and the University of Greifswald are among the oldest in Europe. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was the site of the 33rd G8 summit in 2007, due to its lengthy name, the state is often abbreviated as MV or shortened to MeckPomm. In English, it is translated as Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania or literally Mecklenburg-Cispomerania. Inhabitants are called either Mecklenburger or Pomeranians, the form is never used. The full name in German is pronounced and this is because the digraph <ck> marks a preceding short vowel in High German. Mecklenburg however is within the historical Low German language area, another explanation is that the c comes from a mannerism in High German officialese of writing unnecessary letters, a so-called Letternhäufelung. Human settlement in the area of modern Mecklenburg and Vorpommern began after the Ice Age, about two thousand years ago, Germanic peoples were recorded in the area. Most of them left during the Migration Period, heading towards Spain, Italy, in the 6th century Polabian Slavs populated the area. While Mecklenburg was settled by the Obotrites, Vorpommern was settled by the Veleti, along the coast, Vikings and Slavs established trade posts like Reric, Ralswiek and Menzlin. In the 12th century, Mecklenburg and Vorpommern were conquered by Henry the Lion and incorporated into the Duchy of Saxony, all of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was settled with Germans in the Ostsiedlung process, starting in the 12th century. In the late 12th century, Henry the Lion, Duke of the Saxons, conquered the Obotrites, subjugated its Nikloting dynasty, in the course of time, German monks, nobility, peasants and traders arrived to settle here. After the 12th century, the territory remained stable and relatively independent of its neighbours, Mecklenburg first became a duchy of the Holy Roman Empire in 1348. Though later partitioned and re-partitioned within the dynasty, Mecklenburg always shared a common history. The states of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz became Grand Duchies in 1815, Vorpommern, litererally Fore-Pomerania, is the smaller, western part of the former Prussian Province of Pomerania, the eastern part became part of Poland after the end of World War II. In the Middle Ages, the area was ruled by the Pomeranian dukes as part of the Duchy of Pomerania, Pomerania was under Swedish rule after the Peace of Westphalia from 1648 until 1815 as Swedish Pomerania. Pomerania became a province of Prussia in 1815 and remained so until 1945, wartime In May 1945, the armies of the Soviet Union and the Western allies met east of Schwerin
8.
Berlin-Karlshorst
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Karlshorst is a locality in the borough of Lichtenberg in Berlin. Located there are a racing track and the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin, the largest University of Applied Sciences in Berlin. The locality encompasses the Waldsiedlung, a city laid out between 1919 and 1921 according to plans by Peter Behrens. From 1945 to 1949 the building served as the headquarters of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany. After the establishment of the German Democratic Republic it hosted the 6th Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade, the former headquarters has been made the home of the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, formerly called the Capitulation Museum. Karlshorst has access to the Berlin S-Bahn network at Berlin-Karlshorst railway station, which is also served by RegionalExpress trains of the Deutsche Bahn
9.
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
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The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, abbreviated in English as CPSU, was the founding and ruling political party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The party was founded in 1912 by the Bolsheviks, a group led by Vladimir Lenin which seized power in the aftermath of the October Revolution of 1917. The party was dissolved on 29 August 1991 on Soviet territory soon after a failed coup détat and was abolished on 6 November 1991 on Russian territory. The highest body within the CPSU was the party Congress, which convened every five years, when the Congress was not in session, the Central Committee was the highest body. Because the Central Committee met twice a year, most day-to-day duties and responsibilities were vested in the Politburo, the Secretariat, and the Orgburo. The party leader was the head of government and held the office of either General Secretary, Premier or head of state, or some of the three offices concurrently—but never all three at the same time. The CPSU, according to its party statute, adhered to Marxism–Leninism, a based on the writings of Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx. The party pursued state socialism, under which all industries were nationalized, a number of causes contributed to CPSUs loss of control and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Some historians have written that Gorbachevs policy of glasnost was the root cause, Gorbachev maintained that perestroika without glasnost was doomed to failure anyway. Others have blamed the stagnation and subsequent loss of faith by the general populace in communist ideology. The Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the worlds first constitutionally socialist state, was established by the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the October Revolution. Immediately after the Revolution, the new, Lenin-led government implemented socialist reforms, including the transfer of estates, in this context, in 1918, RSDLP became Russian Communist Party and remained so until 1997. Lenin supported world revolution he sought peace with the Central Powers. The treaty was voided after the Allied victory in World War I, in 1921, Lenin proposed the New Economic Policy, a system of state capitalism that started the process of industrialization and recovery from the Civil War. On 30 December 1922, the Russian SFSR joined former territories of the Russian Empire in the Soviet Union, on 9 March 1923, Lenin suffered a stroke, which incapacitated him and effectively ended his role in government. He died on 21 January 1924 and was succeeded by Joseph Stalin, after emerging victorious from a power struggle with Trotsky, Stalin obtained full control of the party and Stalinism was installed as the only ideology of the party. The partys official name was All-Union Communist Party in 1925, Stalins political purge greatly affected the partys configuration, as many party members were executed or sentenced for slave labour. Happening during the timespan of the Great Purge, fascism had ascened to power in Italy, seeing this as a potential threat, the Party actively sought to form collective security alliances with Anti-fascist western powers such as France and Britain
10.
German reunification
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The end of the unification process is officially referred to as German unity, celebrated on 3 October. Following German reunification, Berlin was once designated as the capital of united Germany. The East German regime started to falter in May 1989, when the removal of Hungarys border fence with Austria opened a hole in the Iron Curtain and it caused an exodus of thousands of East Germans fleeing to West Germany and Austria via Hungary. The united Germany is the continuation of the Federal Republic. For political and diplomatic reasons, West German politicians carefully avoided the term reunification during the run-up to what Germans frequently refer to as die Wende, after 1990, the term die Wende became more common. The term generally refers to the events led up to the actual reunification, in its usual context. When referring to the events surrounding unification, however, it carries the connotation of the time. However, anti-communist activists from Eastern Germany rejected the term Wende as it was introduced by SEDs Secretary General Egon Krenz, the capital city of Berlin was divided into four occupied sectors of control, under the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Germans lived under such imposed divisions throughout the ensuing Cold War, into the 1980s, the Soviet Union experienced a period of economic and political stagnation, and they correspondingly decreased intervention in Eastern Bloc politics. In 1987, US President Ronald Reagan gave a speech at Brandenburg Gate challenging Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down this wall that had separated Berlin. The wall had stood as an icon for the political and economic division between East and West, a division that Churchill had referred to as the Iron Curtain. In early 1989, under a new era of Soviet policies of glasnost, perestroika and taken to more progressive levels by Gorbachev. Further inspired by images of brave defiance, a wave of revolutions swept throughout the Eastern Bloc that year. In May 1989, Hungary removed their border fence and thousands of East Germans escaped to the West, however, events rapidly came to a head in early 1990. First, in March, the Party of Democratic Socialism—the former Socialist Unity Party of Germany—was heavily defeated in East Germanys first free elections. A grand coalition was formed under Lothar de Maizière, leader of the East German wing of Kohls Christian Democratic Union, on a platform of speedy reunification, second, East Germanys economy and infrastructure underwent a swift and near-total collapse. While East Germany had long been reckoned as having the most robust economy in the Soviet bloc, the East German mark had been practically worthless outside East Germany for some time before the events of 1989–90 further magnified the problem. Discussions immediately began for a merger of the German economies
11.
Lothar Bisky
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Lothar Bisky was a German politician. He was the chairman of the Party of Democratic Socialism, the successor of East Germanys Socialist Unity Party, in June 2007 he became co-chairman of the The Left party, formed by a merger of the PDS and the much smaller Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative. From 2007 until 2010 he was the President of the Party of the European Left, also, he was the Publisher of the socialist newspaper Neues Deutschland. Bisky was born in Zollbrück, Pomerania, Germany, from where he came after 1945 as refugee to Schleswig-Holstein in northern West Germany and he was rector of the University of Film and Television from 1986 to 1990. In 1991 he became a member of the board of directors of regional television channel ORB, in 1995, it was discovered that Bisky had been an informer for the Stasi. The Stasi records on his wife referred to his activities as an informant, subsequent investigations revealed that Bisky was registered by the Stasi with the code names of Bienert between 1966 and 1970, and as Klaus Heine from 1987. Lothar Bisky was also described in Stasi records as zuverlässig, the highest level of trust for an informer, in 1990 he was a member of the Volkskammer and beginning in 1990 he was a member of the state parliament in Brandenburg. He was chairman of the PDS from 1993 until his resignation in 2000 over a defeat for the committee on support for United Nations military intervention. He was re-elected chairman in 2003 after this left turn had cost the party its seats in the Bundestag in 2002. Bisky was seen to be on the moderate, social wing of the party and was a long-time close ally of the partys most prominent figure. He was often regarded for his abilities to lead meaningful discussions between parties of completely opposite viewpoints, be it within his own party or in events with other groups. The party returned strongly to the Bundestag in the 2005 election, Bisky, one of 54 Left MPs, was nominated by his party to become one of the six vice presidents of the Bundestag. When the new Bundestag was constituted on 18 October, however, several MPs explained this with the fact that he was an informant of the Stasi. Later, he failed a fourth time, and subsequently gave up his bid for the president position which was given to Petra Pau instead. Lothar Bisky was married and the father of three sons and his oldest son, Jens Bisky, is a journalist and writer and the second-oldest, Norbert Bisky, is a painter. His youngest son, Stephan Bisky, died in late 2008 while working towards his neuro-informatics doctorate at the University of Edinburgh, lothar Bisky died in Leipzig in August 2013. Biography of party Die Linke Brandenburg Will Germany Go Left of the Left. by Markus Deggerich, Der Spiegel, Sept 252009 FAZ, Nachruf
12.
German federal election, 2009
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German federal elections took place on 27 September 2009 to elect the members of the Bundestag, the federal Lower house of Germany. Their main opponent, Frank-Walter Steinmeiers Social Democratic Party, conceded defeat, the Christian Democrats previously governed in coalition with the FDP in most of the 1949–1966 governments of Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard and the 1982–1998 governments of Helmut Kohl. Since the 2005 election, Chancellor Angela Merkel had governed in a coalition with the SPD. However, it was her goal to win a majority for CDU/CSU. Foreign minister and Vice Chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier was formally nominated as his partys chancellor-candidate at a convention on 18 October 2008 and he aimed to form a government in which the SPD was the strongest party, but which also excluded the left-socialist party The Left. The election campaign was considered boring, which may be attributable to a perceived lack of charisma on the part of the leaders of the CDU. Merkel was content with the campaign style, which was largely seen as benefiting her party because of her high approval ratings. One of the moments in the campaign came when CDU candidate Vera Lengsfeld released a campaign poster featuring herself. The poster bore the slogan We have more to offer, the federal election was the final and most important election in what is called a Superwahljahr in Germany. The CDU/CSU received a lower proportion than in the previous election. The two other parties represented in the Bundestag, the Left and the Greens, both made gains and received the highest vote share of their respective histories. For the first time, The Left won constituency seats outside its traditional stronghold of East Berlin. As a result of the losses by the SPD and the gains by the FDP, had the CDU/CSU and FDP failed to win a majority of seats, possible alternative coalitions may have included a continuation of the grand coalition of CDU/CSU and SPD. A traffic light coalition was ruled out by FDP leader Guido Westerwelle. The German Federal Election of 2009, Sprouting Coalitions, Drooping Social Democrats, between Left and Right, The 2009 Bundestag Elections and the Transformation of the German Party System
13.
Gregor Gysi
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Gregor Gysi is a German attorney and key politician of the political party The Left, a party which emerged in part from the old East German Socialist Unity Party of Germany. He belonged to the SEDs reformist camp at the time of the pro-democracy transition inspired by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and he has strongly denied allegations that he used to help the Stasi – the East German secret police. He was the last leader of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and led the effort that transformed it into the post-Communist Party of Democratic Socialism, Gysi was born in East Berlin, Soviet Zone of Germany. His father, Klaus Gysi, was an official in East Germany. His mother, Irene, was the sister of political activist Gottfried Lessing, the surname Gysi is of Swiss-German origin. He is of partial Jewish ancestry, his grandmother was Jewish. One of his maternal great-grandmothers was Russian and his sister, Gabriele, is an actress, who escaped from East Germany in 1985. Today, she is chief dramaturge at the Volksbühne in Berlin, Gysis political career started in the then-ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany of East Germany, to which he was admitted in 1967. In 1971 he became an attorney, and during the 1970s and 1980s defended several prominent dissidents, including Rudolf Bahro, Robert Havemann, Ulrike Poppe. In addition to his work, Gysi emerged as one of East Germanys leading Gorbachev-inspired political reformists within the SED. In 1989, he and a group of lawyers presented a counter-draft to the governments Travel Bill and this led to a mass rally on East-Berlins Alexanderplatz on 4 November in which he spoke and called for various reforms, including free elections. In December 1989, he became a member of a special SED party session investigating official corruption, in December 1989, Egon Krenz, the last Communist leader of East Germany, resigned all of his posts. Gysi was elected as the partys chairman and he did not, however, become the leader of East Germany, the SED had abandoned its monopoly of power on 1 December. In his first speech, Gysi admitted that the SED had brought the country to ruin and he declared that the party needed to adopt a new form of socialism. To that end, he set about transforming the SED into a democratic socialist party. Before the year was out, the last hardliners in the SED leadership had either resigned or been pushed out, on 16 December, the SED was renamed the Socialist Unity Party – Party of Democratic Socialism, it later became simply the Party of Democratic Socialism. In the first post-reunification all-German elections, he was elected to the Bundestag from Berlins Hellersdorf–Marzahn constituency and he remained chairman of the PDS through 1998, and then from 1998 to 2000 served as chairman of the partys parliamentary group. In 1992 allegations were brought against him of having been a collaborator or informant of East Germanys Ministry for State Security
14.
Oskar Lafontaine
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Oskar Lafontaine is a German politician who served in the government of Germany as Minister of Finance from 1998 to 1999. Previously he was Minister President of the state of Saarland from 1985 to 1998, beginning in 2007, Lafontaine was co-chairman of The Left. After being diagnosed with cancer in 2009, he announced his resignation from federal political functions in January 2010. Instead he has been member of parliament for the Left in Saarland since September 2009, Lafontaine was born in Saarlouis into a family of craftsmen. His father, Hans Lafontaine, was a baker and was killed serving in World War II. He spent his living with his mother, Katharina, and his twin brother, Hans. He attended a Catholic episcopal boarding institution in Prüm and there was educated at the Regino-Gymnasium and he left school in 1962 and received a scholarship from Cusanuswerk, the scholarship body of the Catholic Church in Germany, to study physics at the universities of Bonn and Saarland. Lafontaine graduated in 1969, his thesis concerned the production of barium titanate crystals and he worked for Versorgungs- und Verkehrsgesellschaft Saarbrücken until 1974, serving on its board from 1971. Lafontaine has been married four times and has two sons by his second and third wives, in November 2011, Lafontaine officially presented fellow politician Sahra Wagenknecht as his new girlfriend, who is 26 years his junior. Since December 22,2014 they have been married. He is a non-practising Catholic, from 1985 to 1998 he served as Minister-President of the Saarland. In this position he struggled to preserve the industrial base of the state, which was based on production and coal mining with subsidies. Lafontaine was the SPDs candidate for Chancellor in the German federal election of 1990, the election had been called two months after the reunification of Germany, and the incumbent government of Helmut Kohl was in a nearly unassailable position. Although he lost, he was able to lead the SPD to a net 46-seat gain, during the campaign he was attacked with a knife by a mentally deranged woman after a speech in Cologne. His carotid artery was slashed and he remained in a condition for several days. At the Mannheim convention in 1995, he was elected chairman of the SPD in a surprise move, Lafontaine argued that any help given to Kohl would only lengthen his unavoidable demise. After this strategy gave the SPD an unexpectedly clear victory at the polls in September 1998, during his short tenure as Minister of Finance, Lafontaine was a main bogeyman of UK Eurosceptics. This was because, among other things, he had called for the prompt tax harmonisation of the European Union, in 1998, English tabloid The Sun called Lafontaine Europes most dangerous man. However, he has called for the euro to be scrapped
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Der Spiegel
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Der Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europes largest publications of its kind, with a circulation of 840,000. Spiegel Online, the sibling of Der Spiegel, was launched in 1994 with an independent editorial staff. Typically, the magazine has a content to advertising ratio of 2,1, Der Spiegel is known in German-speaking countries mostly for its investigative journalism. It has played a key role in uncovering many political scandals such as the Spiegel scandal in 1962, according to The Economist, Der Spiegel is one of continental Europes most influential magazines. The first edition of Der Spiegel was published in Hanover on Saturday,4 January 1947 and its release was initiated and sponsored by the British occupational administration and preceded by a magazine titled Diese Woche, which had first been published in November 1946. After disagreements with the British, the magazine was handed over to Rudolf Augstein as chief editor, from the first edition in January 1947, Augstein held the position of editor-in-chief, which he retained until his death on 7 November 2002. After 1950, the magazine was owned by Rudolf Augstein and John Jahr, in 1969, Augstein bought out Gruner + Jahr for DM42 million and became the sole owner of Der Spiegel. In 1971, Gruner + Jahr bought back a 25% share in the magazine, in 1974, Augstein restructured the company to make the employees shareholders. All employees with more than three years seniority were offered the opportunity to become an associate and participate in the management of the company, since 1952, Der Spiegel has been headquartered in its own building in the old town part of Hamburg. From 15,000 copies in 1947, it grew to 65,000 in 1948 and 437,000 in 1961 and it was nearly 500,000 copies in 1962. By the 1970s, it had reached a plateau at about 900,000 copies, when the German re-unification in 1990 made it available to a new readership in former East Germany, the circulation exceeded one million. Since 1988, it has produced the TV programme Spiegel TV, during the second quarter of 1992 the circulation of Der Spiegel was 1.1 million copies. In 1994, Spiegel Online was launched and it has separate and independent editorial staff from Der Spiegel. In 1999 the circulation of Der Spiegel was 1,061,000 copies, Der Spiegel had an average circulation of 1,076,000 copies in 2003. In 2007 the magazine started a new regional supplement in Switzerland and it was the first regional supplement of the magazine which covers 50-page review of Switzerland. In 2010 Der Spiegel was employing the equivalent of 80 full-time fact checkers, the same year it was the third best-selling general interest magazine in Europe with a circulation of 1,016,373 copies. When Stefan Aust took over in 1994, the magazines readers realised that his personality was different from his predecessor, in 2005, a documentary by Stephan Lamby quoted him as follows, We stand at a very big cannon
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President of Cuba
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The President of Cuba, officially called from 1976 President of the Council of State, is the head of the Council of State of Cuba. The current office is established under the Constitution of 1976, the President of the Council of State is, at the same time, the President of the Council of Ministers of Cuba, the head of government. In cases of the absence, illness or death of the President of the Council of State, list of Presidents of Cuba Presidency of Fidel Castro 2006–08 Cuban transfer of presidential duties
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Fidel Castro
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Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who governed the Republic of Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2008. Politically a Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist, he served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011. Under his administration, Cuba became a one-party socialist state, industry and business were nationalized, born in Birán, Oriente as the son of a wealthy Spanish farmer, Castro adopted leftist anti-imperialist politics while studying law at the University of Havana. After a years imprisonment, he traveled to Mexico where he formed a revolutionary group, returning to Cuba, Castro took a key role in the Cuban Revolution by leading the Movement in a guerrilla war against Batistas forces from the Sierra Maestra. After Batistas overthrow in 1959, Castro assumed military and political power as Cubas Prime Minister, adopting a Marxist–Leninist model of development, Castro converted Cuba into a one-party, socialist state under Communist Party rule, the first in the Western Hemisphere. Policies introducing central economic planning and expanding healthcare and education were accompanied by control of the press. These actions, coupled with Castros leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1979 to 1983 and Cubas medical internationalism, following the Soviet Unions dissolution in 1991, Castro led Cuba into its Special Period and embraced environmentalist and anti-globalization ideas. In the 2000s he forged alliances in the Latin American pink tide—namely with Hugo Chávezs Venezuela—and signed Cuba up to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, in 2006 he transferred his responsibilities to Vice-President Raúl Castro, who was elected to the presidency by the National Assembly in 2008. Castro is a world figure. His supporters view him as a champion of socialism and anti-imperialism whose revolutionary regime advanced economic, critics view him as a dictator whose administration oversaw human-rights abuses, the exodus of a large number of Cubans, and the impoverishment of the countrys economy. He was decorated with various awards and significantly influenced various individuals. In 1960 Castro was bestowed with the Grand Slam Silver Trophy in the prestigious Ernest Hemingway International Billfishing Tournament after he caught a sailfish, Castro was born out of wedlock at his fathers farm on August 13,1926. His father, Ángel Castro y Argiz, was a migrant to Cuba from Galicia, aged six, Castro was sent to live with his teacher in Santiago de Cuba, before being baptized into the Roman Catholic Church at the age of eight. Being baptized enabled Castro to attend the La Salle boarding school in Santiago, in 1945 he transferred to the more prestigious Jesuit-run El Colegio de Belén in Havana. Although Castro took an interest in history, geography and debating at Belén, he did not excel academically, in 1945, Castro began studying law at the University of Havana. Admitting he was illiterate, he became embroiled in student activism. In 1947, Castro joined the Party of the Cuban People, a charismatic figure, Chibás advocated social justice, honest government, and political freedom, while his party exposed corruption and demanded reform. Though Chibás came third in the 1948 general election, Castro remained committed to working on his behalf, in later years anti-Castro dissidents accused him of committing gang-related assassinations at the time, but these remain unproven
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Berlin Wall
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The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in 1992, the barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area that contained anti-vehicle trenches, fakir beds and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc claimed that the Wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the will of the people in building a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that had marked East Germany, the West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the Wall of Shame—a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt—while condemning the Walls restriction on freedom of movement. Between 1961 and 1989, the Wall prevented almost all such emigration, during this period, around 5,000 people attempted to escape over the Wall, with an estimated death toll ranging from 136 to more than 200 in and around Berlin. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany, crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the Wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, euphoric people and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the Wall, contrary to popular belief the Walls actual demolition did not begin until the summer of 1990 and was not completed until 1992. The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, the capital of Berlin, as the seat of the Allied Control Council, was similarly subdivided into four sectors despite the citys location, which was fully within the Soviet zone. Within two years, political divisions increased between the Soviets and the occupying powers. Property and industry was nationalized in the East German zone, if statements or decisions deviated from the described line, reprimands and punishment would ensue, such as imprisonment, torture and even death. Indoctrination of Marxism-Leninism became a part of school curricula, sending professors. The East Germans created a political police apparatus that kept the population under close surveillance. In 1948, following disagreements regarding reconstruction and a new German currency, Stalin instituted the Berlin Blockade, preventing food, materials and supplies from arriving in West Berlin. The United States, Britain, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several countries began a massive airlift, supplying West Berlin with food. The Soviets mounted a public campaign against the Western policy change. Communists attempted to disrupt the elections of 1948, preceding large losses therein, in May 1949, Stalin lifted the blockade, permitting the resumption of Western shipments to Berlin. The German Democratic Republic was declared on 7 October 1949, by a secret treaty, the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs accorded the East German state administrative authority, but not autonomy. The Soviets permeated East German administrative, military and secret police structures and had full control, East Germany differed from West Germany, which developed into a Western capitalist country with a social market economy and a democratic parliamentary government
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Bernd Riexinger
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Bernd Riexinger is a German politician of the Left Party. He was named co-chairman of the party, together with Katja Kipping, a banker by profession, Riexinger was on the works council of Leonberger Bausparkasse from 1980 to 1990. In 1991 he became a union official. Riexinger is a member of the Initiative for networking between trade union leftists and is active in the Social Forum movement in Germany, in 2003, Riexinger was among the initiators of mass protests against the Agenda 2010 of the federal government at that time. On 30 May 2012, Riexinger announced that he would run for the position of chairman of The Left and he was elected ahead of second-placed candidate Dietmar Bartsch. Up until this point Riexinger had been director of the Stuttgart division of the trade union ver. di. On 10 May 2014 he was reelected along with Katja Kipping as chairman of The Left with 89% of the votes by a national party conference. Unlike his co-chair Katja Kipping, he is not a member of the Bundestag or even one of the state parliaments, personal website Interview with Bernd Riexinger Spiegel Online 22 June 2012 A conversation with Riexinger on socialist strategy Jacobin May 2014
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Integrated Authority File
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The Integrated Authority File or GND is an international authority file for the organisation of personal names, subject headings and corporate bodies from catalogues. It is used mainly for documentation in libraries and increasingly also by archives, the GND is managed by the German National Library in cooperation with various regional library networks in German-speaking Europe and other partners. The GND falls under the Creative Commons Zero license, the GND specification provides a hierarchy of high-level entities and sub-classes, useful in library classification, and an approach to unambiguous identification of single elements. It also comprises an ontology intended for knowledge representation in the semantic web, available in the RDF format
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Virtual International Authority File
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The Virtual International Authority File is an international authority file. It is a joint project of national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center. The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress, the German National Library, the National Library of France joined the project on October 5,2007. The project transitions to a service of the OCLC on April 4,2012, the aim is to link the national authority files to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together, a VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the primary see and see also records from the original records, and refers to the original authority records. The data are available online and are available for research and data exchange. Reciprocal updating uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting protocol, the file numbers are also being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata. VIAFs clustering algorithm is run every month, as more data are added from participating libraries, clusters of authority records may coalesce or split, leading to some fluctuation in the VIAF identifier of certain authority records
Media related to Dietmar Bartsch at Wikimedia Commons
