Hans Modrow | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Modrow in 1989 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chairman of the Council of Ministers | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 13 November 1989 – 12 April 1990 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Head of state | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Deputy |
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| Preceded by | Willi Stoph | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Lothar de Maizière (as Minister-President) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| First Secretary of theSocialist Unity Party inBezirk Dresden | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 3 October 1973 – 15 November 1989 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Second Secretary |
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| Preceded by | Werner Krolikowski | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Hansjoachim Hahn | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Head of theDepartment for Agitation of theCentral Committee | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 19 June 1971 – 2 October 1973 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Secretary |
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| Deputy |
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| Preceded by | Werner Lamberz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Heinz Geggel | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1928-01-27)27 January 1928 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 10 February 2023(2023-02-10) (aged 95) Berlin, Germany | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Political party | The Left (2007–2023) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Other political affiliations |
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| Spouse | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Children | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alma mater |
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| Occupation |
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Central institution membership
Other offices held
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| Leader of East Germany | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hans Modrow (German pronunciation:[ˈhansˈmoːdʁo]; 27 January 1928 – 10 February 2023) was a German politician best known as the last communistpremier of East Germany.
Coming into office amidst thePeaceful Revolution, he was thede facto leader of East Germany through the winter of 1989-90. He presided over atransitional government, paving the way tothe first and only free elections in East Germany.His cabinet was the last over which the SED presided, as well as the first to include opposition members.
After the end of Communist rule andreunification of Germany, he was convicted ofelectoral fraud andperjury by the Dresden District Court in 1995, on the basis that he had been the Socialist Unity Party (SED) official nominally in charge of the electoral process. He was later convicted of the first charge and was given a nine-month suspended sentence. One of the few high-ranking former SED officials to not have been expelled, he was the honorary chairman of theParty of Democratic Socialism (PDS)[2] and was the president of the "council of elders" of theLeft Party from 2007.[3]
Modrow was born on 27 January 1928 inJasenitz, Province of Pomerania, German Reich, nowJasienica, part of the town ofPolice in Poland.[4][5] As a child he was aHitler Youth leader and attended aVolksschule. He trained as amachinist from 1942 to 1945 when he was filled with intense hatred of theBolsheviks, whom he deemed assubhumans, inferior to Germans physically and morally.[6][7] For six months during theAllied bombing ofStettin he served as a volunteer firefighter.[7] He later served briefly in theVolkssturm in January 1945,[7][5] and was subsequently captured as aprisoner of war by the SovietRed Army inStralsund in May 1945. He and other German prisoners were sent to a farm inHinterpommern to work. Upon arrival, his backpack was stolen, making him begin to rethink the Germans' so-called camaraderie. Days later, he was appointed a driver to a Soviet captain, who asked him aboutHeinrich Heine, a German poet. Modrow had never heard of him and felt embarrassed that the people he thought of as "subhumans" knew more aboutGerman culture than he. Transported to aPOW camp near Moscow, he joined aNational Committee for a Free Germany anti-fascist school run by future SED Politburo memberAlfred Neumann forWehrmacht members and received training inMarxism–Leninism, which he embraced.[6][7] Upon release in 1949 he worked as a machinist forLEW Hennigsdorf.[5] That same year he joined theSocialist Unity Party (SED).[5]
From 1949 to 1961, Modrow worked in various functions for theFree German Youth (FDJ) inBrandenburg,Mecklenburg, and Berlin and in 1952 and 1953 studied at theKomsomol college in Moscow.[5] In 1953, he attended thestate funeral of Joseph Stalin. AfterNikita Khrushchev'sSecret Speech at the20th Party Congress condemning Stalin and beginningde-Stalinization, Modrow claimed to have complained to his former teacher Neumann "Comrade, this is unacceptable — you are accusing us of having learned Stalin off by heart, but I never had the inclination to do this myself, you asked us to!"[7] From 1953 to 1961, he served as an FDJ functionary inEast Berlin.[5] From 1954 to 1957, he studied at the SED's Karl Marx School in Berlin, graduating as a social scientist.[5] In 1959 to 1961 he studied at the University of Economics in Berlin-Karlshorst and obtained the degree of graduate economist.[5] He gained his doctorate at theHumboldt University of Berlin in 1966.[5] West Germany'sFederal Intelligence Service (BND) kept Modrow under observation from 1958 to 2013.[8][9]
Modrow had a long political career in East Germany, serving as a member of theVolkskammer from 1957 to 1990 and in the SED'sCentral Committee (ZK) from 1967 to 1989, having previously been a candidate for the ZK from 1958 to 1967.[5] From 1961 to 1967 he was first secretary of the district administration of the SED in Berlin-Köpenick and secretary foragitation and propaganda from 1967 to 1971 in the SED's district leadership in Berlin.[5] During this time he was involved in the formation of theUnion Berlin football club,[10][11] which is based in the Köpenick district. From 1971 to 1973 he worked as the head of the SED'sDepartment for Agitation.[5] In 1975 he was awarded the GDR'sPatriotic Order of Merit in gold[12] and received the award of theOrder of Karl Marx in 1978.[13]
From 1973 onward, he was the SED's first secretary inBezirk Dresden, making him the top official in East Germany's third-largestdistrict.[5] He was prevented from rising to national office, largely because he was one of the few in leadership to publicly opposeErich Honecker. He developed some important contacts with theSoviet Union, including eventual Soviet leaderMikhail Gorbachev. Modrow initially supported Gorbachev'sglasnost andperestroika reforms.[7] In early 1987, Gorbachev and theKGB considered facilitating Honecker's ouster with a view to bringing Modrow to leadership.[14] From 1988 to 1989, theStasi, under the orders of Honecker andErich Mielke, vigorously investigated Modrow to attempt to frame him forhigh treason.[15]
During the Peaceful Revolution of 1989, Modrow ordered thousands ofVolkspolizei, Stasi,Combat Groups of the Working Class, andNational People's Army troops to crush a demonstration at theDresden Hauptbahnhof on 4–5 October. Some 1,300 people were arrested. In a top secret and encryptedtelex to Honecker on 9 October, Modrow reported: "With the determined commitment of the comrades of the security organs, anti-state terrorist riots were suppressed".[16]
When Honecker was toppled on 18 October, Gorbachev hoped that Modrow would replace him;Egon Krenz was selected instead.[17] FollowingWilli Stoph's resignation on 13 November, four days after fall of theBerlin Wall, Modrow became Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Premier). On 1 December, the SED gave up its "leading role," formally ending communist rule in East Germany. Krenz resigned two days later. With the SED Politburo, until then the top leadership body, in disarray, Modrow, as Premier and the top state (rather than party) official, and thus the only person with a viable claim to power outside the imploding SED structure, became leader of the country more or less by default.[18][19]
Seeking to defuse growing pressure to dissolve theMinistry of State Security, Modrow arranged for its renaming to the "Office for National Security" (Amt für Nationale Sicherheit – AfNS) on 17 November. A second rebranding as the "Office for the Protection of the Constitution of the GDR" (Verfassungsschutz der DDR) failed due to public and opposition pressure; the AfNS/Stasi was disbanded on 13 January 1990.[20] The Modrow government gave orders to destroy incriminating Stasi files.[16]
On 7 December, Modrow's government agreed at theRound Table to holdfree elections in May 1990. Modrow and the Round Table agreed on 28 January to bring the elections forward to 18 March. By this time, the SED had added "Party of Democratic Socialism" to its name; this became its sole name in February. Some of the left-wing Round Table groups opposedHelmut Kohl's conservativegovernment in the West, and worked with Modrow to arrest the pace of unification with West Germany. Swift reunification had popular support, however, and Modrow's stance was untenable.[21]
On 5 February, Modrow appointed eight oppositionministers without portfolio tohis cabinet. On 13 February, Modrow met with West German ChancellorHelmut Kohl, asking for an emergency loan of 15 billionDM to stabilize the collapsing Eastern economy, which was rejected by Kohl.[22] Modrow remained premier until the formation of theDe Maizière cabinet in April followingelections in which the PDS placed third.[5] The PDS had already ejectedHonecker,Krenz, and other Communist-era leaders in February.[23]
On 27 May 1993, the Dresden District Court found Modrow guilty ofelectoral fraud committed in the May 1989 Dresden local elections, specifically, understating the percentage of voters who refused to vote for the official slate.[24] The judge declined to impose a prison sentence or a fine.[24] The Dresden District Court revoked the decision in August 1995 and Modrow was sentenced to nine months on probation.[25][26] Modrow did not directly deny the charges, but argued that the trial was politically motivated and that the court lacked jurisdiction for crimes committed in East Germany. "We were all members of a political system," he said, speaking to the court in Dresden. "Some perhaps had the good fortune not to come into contact with manipulation, while others could not or were not allowed to turn away."[24]
AfterGerman reunification, Modrow served as a member of theBundestag (1990–1994)[5] and of theEuropean Parliament (1999–2004).[27] After leaving office, he wrote a number of books on his political experiences, his continued Marxist political views, and his disappointment at the dissolution of theEastern Bloc.[28][29] Although a supporter of Gorbachev's reforms in the 1980s, after thefall of Communism he criticised them for weakening theEastern Bloc's economy.[7] In 2006, he suggested bothWest Germany and East Germany were responsible for the killings of East Germans by the communist regime at theBerlin Wall, and later defended the construction of the wall as a necessary measure to prevent a war over West Berlin.[30] He also calledEast Germany an "effective democracy".[31] He was criticised for maintaining contacts withNeo-Stalinist groups.[32] In 2018, he sued theFederal Intelligence Service for access to West German intelligence files on him from theCold War.[33] In 2019 he criticised theenlargement of NATO, which he also opposed reunified Germany's membership in.[30] Modrow died on 10 February 2023, aged 95.[34][35] He is buried atDorotheenstadt Cemetery.[36]
| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic 1989–1990 | Succeeded by |
| Minister-President |  | |
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  German members of the European Parliament (1999–2004) | |
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| Christian Democratic Union |
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| Social Democratic Party |
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| Christian Social Union in Bavaria |
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| Alliance 90/The Greens | |
| Party of Democratic Socialism | |
