Hans Modrow, the last communist Chancellor of East Germany, has died at the age of 95. On November 9, 1989, four days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he was appointed prime minister by the SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany) in hopes of reviving the party and giving the country a new future.
Nothing came of it: On March 18, 1990, the communists lost the first free elections in East Germany, and Modrow had to give way to Lothar de Maizière, the CDU politician who would go down in history as East Germany’s last chancellor. .
In the five months that Modrow was prime minister, he tried to salvage some of the “DAC ideology”. With the rapidly growing realization that reunification with West Germany was inevitable, Helmut Kohl demanded, among other things, that the new Germany be militarily neutral in his initial exploratory talks with his government.
He was also one of the founders of Treuhandanstalt, the controversial institution that privatized East German state companies and sought to prepare them for the free market economy of the West.
Modrow also passed legislation that allowed landlords and landlords to repurchase their land at a bargain price after World War II was expropriated by the communists. This law also has a name: Modrow’s law.
merger
On October 3, 1990, East and West Germany were united and reunification became a reality. Founded in the Soviet-occupied part of defeated Germany in 1949, the GDR only lasted 41 years.
After reunification, Modrow remained politically active. He sat in the Bundestag for the socialist PDS (the successor organization to the SED) for several years and was also a member of the European Parliament. He criticized the growth rate of the two Germanys together. In numerous interviews, Modrow has explained that East Germany is unilaterally portrayed as an “unlawful state”.
Source: NOS
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
