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Rainer Ortleb Bundesminister a. D. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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 Ortleb in 1990 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Leader of theLiberal Democratic Party | |||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 10 February 1990 – 11 August 1990 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Manfred Gerlach | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Position abolished Otto Graf Lambsdorff(as Leader of theFree Democratic Party) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Minister of Education and Research | |||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 12 January 1991 – 4 February 1994 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Chancellor | Helmut Kohl | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Jürgen Möllemann | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Karl-Hans Laermann | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Minister for Special Affairs | |||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 3 October 1990 – 17 January 1991 Serving with Hans Klein,Rudolf Seiters,Lothar de Maizière,Sabine Bergmann-Pohl,Günther Krause,Hansjoachim Walther | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Chancellor | Helmut Kohl | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Position established | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Position abolished | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Leader ofDie Liberalen group in theVolkskammer | |||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 5 April 1990 – 2 October 1990 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Position established | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Wolfgang Mischnick(as Leader of theFree Democratic Party in theBundestag) | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1944-06-05)5 June 1944 (age 81) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Political party | Independent | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Other political affiliations | Free Democratic Party(1990–2001) Liberal Democratic Party(1968–1990) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Children | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Residence | Dresden | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | Dresden University of Technology (Dr. rer. nat.) (Dr.-Ing. habil.) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Occupation |
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Rainer Ortleb (born 5 June 1944) is a German academic and politician.
From October 1990 he served underHelmut Kohl as aFederal Minister for Special Affairs in Germany'sfirst post-reunification government. In thenext government, between 1991 and 1994, he served asFederal Minister of Education and Research.[1][2]
Ortleb was born directly after thewar in the eastern part ofThuringia, then a part of theSoviet occupation zone in what had until recently been central southern Germany. During his early years the zone became the newly createdGerman Democratic Republic. Ortleb successfully completed his schooling in 1962 and undertook military service with theNational People's Army until 1964, then signing up as anarmy reserve officer.[1]
He studiedMathematics atDresden, obtaining his first degree in 1963 and hisdoctorate in 1971.[2] In 1977 he became a senior research assistant, still at theDresden University of Technology. Here, for several years, he also headed up an "Army Reserve Collective", in the end reaching the rank of lieutenant.[3] Further academic promotion (Habilitation) to the status of"Dr.-Ing. (engineering)" followed in 1983, on the basis of a paper entitled"Baustein-Terminal in Dialogsystemen", after which his academic work focused on Information Systems.[4] He moved north in 1984, toRostock University where he lectured on information systems processing, was appointed an associate professor in 1989, and where he worked from 1992 to 1998 as Professor for Technical Systems Applications Software.[4]
Ortleb joined theLiberal Democratic Party of Germany (LDPD) in 1968. The East German LDPD was one of five constituentBloc parties controlled by the country's rulingSED party through a political structure called theNational Front. He subsequently held various positions within the LDPD, joining the regional party secretariat forDresden in 1976. His political career started moving to Rostock before his academic career, and in 1978 he was elected LDPD regional chairman for theRostock region. In 1982, however, he was additionally appointed chairman of the LDPD's district executive for the party in Dresden-south.[1] At the LDPD party conference atWeimar on 3 March 1977, he appeared, not for the last time at a party conference, in hisarmy uniform and gave a rousing speech in praise of national defense.[5] He spoke with eloquence and some passion: "My first argument is visible to you all, this uniform ... the result, the exercise in the art of war, is forced on us daily by the actions of the imperialists"[6] Western observers subsequently identified more than a trace of irony in his performance.[7]
TheBerlin Wall was breached in November, ushering in a period ofrapid transition which by August 1990 had led toGerman reunification. On 10 February 1990 the LDPD held a Special Party Conference at Dresden, the outcome of which was a new name and a new Party Chairman. The new name was actually the old name which the party had been required to abandon in 1951. The Liberal Democratic Party (LPD /Liberal-Demokratische Partei) elected Rainer Ortleb as its new chairman - effectively the party leader - in succession toManfred Gerlach. East Germany's first and last nationalfree election took place in March 1990 with the party (inalliance with a couple of recently emerged like minded and short-lived groupings) won 21 seats under Ortleb's leadership, and a junior role in East Germany's governing coalition underLothar de Maizière. Ortleb's career as a party leader was cut short in August 1990, however, when his LDP merged with its West German counterpart, theFDP (Freie Demokratische Partei).
Following the merger of the LDP with the FDP Rainer Ortleb became regional party chairman inMecklenburg-Vorpommern between 1991 and 1994. In 1997 he became the FDP regional party chairman inSaxony, becoming in the process the only FDP politician to be a regional party chairman successively in two different regions.
In 1999 Ortleb resigned from his party chairmanship in Saxony following poor performance in a regional election for which his name had been at the top of the FDP candidate list. Two years later, following differences within the party over support forIngolf Roßberg as the party's (successful) candidate as mayor of Dresden, Ortleb resigned from the party in 2001.
In the2009 election Ortleb gave his support to"Die Linke", the successor to East Germany's old rulingSED (party).[1] In November 2009 he gave a wide-ranging press interview celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the fall of theBerlin Wall, in which he called for a reorientation of his former party, theFDP.[8]
TheEast German election in March 1990 saw the liberal alliance led by Ortleb gaining more than 5% of the national vote. Ortleb, representing the Dresden constituency, was one of 21 Liberal Democrats who now entered theNational Assembly (Volkskammer) where he led the Liberal group. He was one of the 144 deputies in the chamber who on 3 October 1990, as part of the German reunification process, became members of theBundestag (National Assembly) of the reunited Germany. In the following two national elections, inDecember 1990 and inOctober 1994, he was elected to the Bundestag as a deputy forMecklenburg-Vorpommern. Ortleb remained a member of the Bundestag until 1998.[1]
On 3 October 1990 Rainer Ortleb was one of the formerly East German political leaders to join the cabinet of the newly reunified Germany, underFederal Chancellor Kohl. Initially he served as aMinister without portfolio, but following the national election two months later, on 19 January 1991, Ortleb was appointed Minister for Science and Training in succession toJürgen Möllemann.[1] On 3 February 1994 he resigned from his ministerial position on health grounds.[9][10]
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