Christa Luft | |||||||||||||||||||||
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.jpg) Luft in 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers | |||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 18 November 1989 – 12 April 1990 Serving with Peter Moreth,Lothar de Maizière | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Chairman | Hans Modrow | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Günther Kleiber Alfred Neumann | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Peter-Michael Diestel | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Minister of Economics | |||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 18 November 1989 – 12 April 1990 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Chairman of the Council of Ministers | Hans Modrow | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Position established | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Gerhard Pohl | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | Christa Hecht (1938-02-22)22 February 1938 (age 87) Krakow am See,Nazi Germany (now Germany) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Political party | Independent | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Other political affiliations | The Left (2007–2022) Party of Democratic Socialism (1989–2007) Socialist Unity Party (1958–1989) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Children | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Residence | Berlin | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Occupation |
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Christa Luft (néeHecht; born 22 February 1938) is a German economist and politician of theSED/PDS.[1] Luft joined the SED in 1958. From 18 November 1989 to 18 March 1990, she was theMinister of Economics in theModrow government.[2] From 1994 to 2002 she wasmember of theBundestag for the PDS.
From 1963 to 1971 Luft was registered as aStasiinformant under the code nameIM Gisela.[3][4]
Christa Hecht was born into a working-class family atKrakow am See, a small market town in the flat countryside to the south ofRostock in northern central Germany. Her father worked as a master machinist.[5] at theVEB Mathias-Thesen-Werft Wismar ship building business inWismar. Her mother was in charge of a schools kitchen.[4] Her father was away for years at a time during thewar, but after 1944 he came safely home, and while she was still small the family moved toWismar in connection with her father's work.[6] She attended junior school inBobitz between 1945 and 1952, and thenupper school atGrevesmühlen, still in the Rostock area. Like most of her contemporaries, she joined theFree German Youth ("Freie Deutsche Jugend)" / FDJ) in 1952,[6] remaining a member till 1964.[4]
Shortly before the end of her penultimate year at secondary school she was one of four students – two boys and two girls – picked out by the school director to complete her schooling at the prestigiousWorkers' and Peasants' Faculty attached toHalle University in the central part of what had become, in October 1949, theGerman Democratic Republic (East Germany -) formerly theSoviet Occupation Zone).[6] Her selection held out the possibility of the chance to travel abroad in the future – which in the context of the time and place meant theSoviet Union or the other fraternal socialist member states of the recently launchedWarsaw Pact.[6] It was to facilitate the possibility of international exchange that at Halle much of the teaching took place not in German but in Russian.[6] She was also required to attend an interview before arrangements could be finalised, which from a western perspective seems to have been intended to verify her "political reliability". She was able to confirm that she had no close relatives beyond theincreasingly impenetrable "inner frontier" in"the other Germany", and knew to keep her indignation to herself when asked almost casually how she felt about the church. Inwardly she thought the matter was none of the business of her interviewers, but the reply she gave, as she would recall it many years later, was restricted to the observation that she enjoyed listening to organ concerts.[6] Before agreeing to the move she had obtained her parents' advice on it,[6] and during her time atHalle she used to return home on the train to the north of the country regularly.[7] She would later tell an interviewer that early on she nurtured ambitions of working inVeterinary medicine, but during her time at Halle it became clear that this was not an option: her ambition and enthusiasm switched to Economics, albeit always with a special focus on foreign trade.[8] Passing herAbitur (school final exams) as a student at the Workers' and Peasants' Faculty in 1956 opened the way to university level education, and she enrolled as a student at the College of Foreign Trade ("Hochschule für Außenhandel") inBerlin-Slaken, then moving on to theBerlin Economics College ("Hochschule für Ökonomie Berlin"/ HfÖ) atBerlin-Karlshorst where her teachers includedHelmut Koziolek, and from where she emerged in 1960 with a degree in Economics.[9]
Following her graduation she stayed on at the HfÖ as a research assistant, working for her doctorate which she received in 1964. Her doctoral dissertation concerned "The key influences of socialist international division of labour and foreign trade on the beneficial impact for societal labour (investigated using an East German example)" (" Die wesentlichen Einflüsse der sozialistischen internationalen Arbeitsteilung und des Außenhandels auf den Nutzeffekt gesellschaftlicher Arbeit (untersucht am Beispiel der Empfängerröhrenindustrie der DDR)"). Her supervisors were Gertrud Gräbig andManfred Funke. Between 1964 and 1968 she stayed at the HfÖ as an academic employee, with co-responsibility for creating a new academic discipline, that of "socialist foreign trade" ("Leitung des sozialistischen Außenhandels"), under the direction ofErich Freund, the founding director back in 1954 of the "Foreign Trade Academy" ("Hochschule für Außenhandel") and co-chairman (from theEast German side) of the Committee forinter-German trade. She travelled to the west with this working group in 1966 for a study visit to theKrupp heavy-industry conglomerate inEssen: they also visitedBremen for a meeting with Carl Katz, the co-chairman (from theWest German side) of the Committee forinter-German trade. In 1968 Luft received herhabilitation, a higher academic qualification which would have opened the way to a full-time academic career, though her own career trajectory would include a parallel political channel. Her dissertation again addressed the interface between political socialism and foreign trade ("Zur bewussten Ausnutzung der dialektischen Einheit ökonomischer und psychologischer Marktfaktoren beim Export der DDR nach dem sozialistischen Wirtschaftsgebiet sowie nach kapitalistischen Industrie- und Entwicklungsländern – Das Wesen der Verkaufspsychologie im sozialistischen Außenhandel").[10] Her habilitation was supervised by Gertrud Gräbig and Horst Tiedtke. Remaining at theHfÖ, in 1968 Luft received afull-time teaching contract in the newly developed academic discipline, "socialist foreign trade" ("Leitung des sozialistischen Außenhandels").[4]
Between 1967 and 1970 she worked as assistant dean ("Prodekanin") fordistance learning at the Foreign Trade faculty. In 1971 she accepted a full professorship in Socialist Foreign Economics ("für sozialistische Außenwirtschaft ") the HfÖ. Between 1973 and 1977 she served as director of the Socialist Foreign Economics section.[4] She was also a regular visitor to "the Academy for Foreign Trade and Tourism "("Hochschule für Außenhandel und Touristik") atMaribor, a city in the northern part of what was at that time known asYugoslavia. She held a guest professorship at the academy in Maribor which was a partner institution of theHfÖ. Between 1978 and 1981 she was a deputy director of the "International Institute for the Economic Problems of the Socialist World System" ("Internationalen Instituts für ökonomische Probleme des sozialistischen Weltsystems") attached to the Moscow-controlledCouncil for Mutual Economic Assistance ("Совет экономической взаимопомощи" / Comecon).[8] She was able to build on her contacts with comrade-academics from other socialist countries, representing The Institute at international gatherings and at conferences organised by the United Nations in Geneva and New York City. After returning the German Democratic Republic, between 1982 and 1987, she again served as dean in the Foreign Economics section at the HfÖ. With theSoviet Union investing heavily in modernising its own engineering and heavy industry sectors, the traditionally complementary economic relationship between the Soviet Union and East Germany was becoming more overtly competitive, and economic pressures were forcing the East German government to try and diversify its trading relationships. As a representative of the largest Economics teaching and research institution in theGerman Democratic Republic, Luft participated during this time in a succession of international congresses at which she made presentations: venues included Athens, Madrid and New Delhi. From 1985 Christa Luft was involved in setting up regular one and two term study visits for HfÖ students of Foreign Economics at theVienna University of Economics and Business ("Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien "). She also initiated a collaboration programme with East European specialists at theSorbonne (university) in Paris. Out of this there emerged a series of bilateralcolloquia in Paris, Lyon and Berlin. In 1987 Christa Luft was appointed a corresponding member of the(East) German Academy of Sciences.[11]
More than twenty years later Christa Luft told an interviewer that by October 1988 it had been clear that there were "only a couple of blockheads, who did not want to see what was happening, and how unrest was increasing among the general population, not simply because of the shortages, but because people were spiritually at the end of their tethers. [by the time she returned from a visit to the Soviet Union earlier that year she was convinced that one had a particular responsibility to do something] if you carried responsibility for the spiritual awakening of a new generation of students.[a] Her speech of acceptance when she was appointedrector at theHfÖ was addressed to the new cohort of students: in the East German context, it was intriguingly prescient and strangely uncoded:
- "I should like to see the massive potential which we have here among the teaching staff and among the students, well used. When we will look back [on these times] we should not simply have to celebrate how wisely the party leadership implemented their decisions, but that we were ourselves to the fore in working collaboratively on solving the problems [of the country]."
- "Ich möchte, dass dieses große Potenzial, das wir im Lehrkörper und unter den Studenten haben, richtig genutzt wird, dass wir nicht im Nachhinein immer bejubeln müssen, wie weise die Parteiführung wieder Beschlüsse gefasst hat, sondern ich möchte, dass wir im Vorfeld an der Lösung der Probleme mitarbeiten können."[6]
Christa Luft, October 1988, quoted by Rainer Burchhardt in 2011
By 1988 the HfÖ inBerlin-Karlshorst had been renamed as theHochschule für Ökonomie Bruno Leuschner. On 28 October of that year Christa Luft was appointedrector of the institution which had by this time been the focus of her professional and academic life for three decades. The accelerating pace of social and politicalchanges over the next year would mean that she stayed in post for slightly more than one year.[12]
In 1989 Christa Luft entered politics at a time of national transition. Between 18 November 1989 and 18 March 1990 she served as first of the three vice-chair of the East GermanMinisterial Council and as Minister of Economics in theModrow government.[4] During this time she participated alongsideHans Modrow, in January 1990, in the finalComecon meeting. The meeting was held inSofia and made the important decision to migrate member states towards a system of trade based on freely convertible currencies, and thereby implicitly put an end to the system of fixed exchange rates within the Eastern bloc.[13] Less than a month later she was inBonn taking part on the first and last joint cabinet meeting between theEast andWest German governments, again discussing currency exchange rates, this time between East and West Germany.[14][15] (There was still little appreciation of the speed with whichreunification could and would take place later that same year.) Thefirst (and as matters turned out last) free and fair general election ever held inEast Germany took place on 18 March 1990. One result of the new approach was that theSocialist Unity Party ("Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands" / SED), struggling to reinvent itself for a democratic future as theParty of Democratic Socialism (PDS), received only 66 of the 400 seats in thenational parliament ("Volkskammer"). It was the first time since the foundation of theGerman Democratic Republic back in October 1949 that theSED) and its proxies had not commanded a comfortable majority in the chamber. Christa Luft was one of the 66 SED/PDS members, elected for theKarl-Marx-Stadt (previously and subsequently Chemnitz) electoral district.[4] She served as chair of theBudget Committee of the Bundestag. Nevertheless, with her party excluded from the governing coalition underPrime Minister Lothar de Maizière, she no longer held ministerial office. The Economics Ministry now went toGerhard Pohl of thecentre-right CDU party.[16]
During her time as a national politician Christa Luft retained her links with theHfÖ, in charge of the "East European Economics" ("Osteuropawirtschaft") teaching chair till 1 October 1991, which was when theBerlin senate, a couple of days ahead ofreunification, closed down the entire institution.[11]
Between 1 October 1991 and 31 October 1994 Luft was a member of the governing executive and a lecturer at the "Berlin Institute for International Education" ("Institut für Internationale Bildung Berlin e.V.") of which she was a co-founder. The focus was to educate a generation Russian speaking economics experts from Russia and the surrounding post-Soviet successor states, especially from Bulgaria and also from China.[11] During this time she accepted a number of invitations to appear as a guest lecturer on the East German experience of political and economic transformation. Within Europe she delivered such presentations atSt. Gallen,Mülheim an der Ruhr and theFree University of Berlin. Farther afield she also shared her insights in China and in Vietnam.
As part of the unification process 144 members of the East GermanVolkskammer, including 24 of thePDS members, transferred to theenlarged Bundestag of a reunited Germany. Christa Luft was not one of them. However, she stood for election in the 1994, when the PDS experienced a modest recovery, increasing the number of its seats from 17 to 30. Luft's candidacy, which was as a "directly elected" member for theBerlin-Friedrichshain-Lichtenberg electoral district, was successful, with 44.4% of the first preference votes: between 1994 and 2002 she served as a PDS member of the Bundestag.[17] Between 1998 and 2002 she served as chair of the PDS group in the chamber and as the party's parliamentary spokesperson on Economics and budgetary matters.[4]
Christa Luft regularly wrote a column on politics and economics inNeues Deutschland between 2002 and 2012, in a feature that also included regular contributions fromHarry Nick,Robert Kurz andRudolf Hickel.[18] She remains engaged as a commentator and author.
Christa Luft has been a member of theLearnedLeibnitz Society since 1993. She is a member of theGerman Association for East European Studies ("Deutsche Gesellschaft für Osteuropakunde") and of theOWUS ("(Offener Wirtschaftsverband von kleinen und mittelständischen Unternehmen, Freiberuflern und Selbständigen e. V.)"). She was the first chairperson of the OWUS.[19]
Between 2002 and 2008 Christa Luft chaired theKuratorium (loosely, "board of trustees") of theRosa Luxemburg Foundation. For the subsequent five years, till 2013, she was an elected member of the foundation's executive committee.[20]
During her time as a member of theEast German parliament ("Volkskammer") at the end of 1989 Luft volunteered to undergo a check to see whether and how she might feature in the survivingMinistry for State Security (Stasi) files. Nothing incriminatory was identified. Luft herself had denied having had any contact with the security services. At this stage there was little appreciation of the size of the Stasi operation nor of the extent to which – despite desperate attempts during the final days of the communist régime to burn the evidence – detailed records of Stasi activities over the previous forty years had survived.[21] Subsequently, after further delving in the Stasi archives revealed that back in 1963, when she was 25, she had signed an undertaking to provide unspecified items of information to the authorities, she stated that she had no recollection of the matter ("Daran erinnere ich mich nicht").[21] During the early 1990sAlexander Schalck-Golodkowski disclosed to(West) German intelligence that Christa Luft had had links with theHVA The HVA was the department of theMinistry for State Security that dealt with "foreign" intelligence. In reality it had concentrated on West Germany.Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski was a senior politician and trade official with Stasi connections in East Germany. He provided a large amount of information to western intelligence afterthe collapse of East German's power structure/[21] He said that Luft had been handled by a Stasi officer known as Manfred Süß,[22] but this turned out to be incorrect.[23]
Luft was a member of theBundestag between 1994 and 2002: the nature and extent of any past associations she might have had with theStasi were naturally of interest to the parliamentary authorities. An investigation by theParliamentary Committee for Election verification, Immunity and Procedure resulted in a careful and detailed report which was published in June 1998. It was established that between 1963 and 1971 Christa Luft had been registered under the cover name "IM Gisela" in connection with an operation undertaken by theStasi'sMain Directorate for Reconnaissance ("Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung" / HVA) section.[23] She had been recruited shortly before receiving her doctorate. On 31 October 1963 she had signed a handwritten "declaration of obligation" statement, of the kind frequently used forinformants (" inoffizieller Mitarbeiter") recruited by the Stasi. Later in 1963 she had delivered several (three) "background reports in support of the unmasking of an alleged western spy. However, this was only a 'dummy case' case, used to test her reliability".[b][23] Luft never denied the existence of the assignment, although her recollections of it, at a detailed level, were differently nuanced:
Theinvestigating Parliamentary Committee reported in addition that Luft had declared herself, "from 1965, prepared to act as a 'cover address' for receiving postal items on behalf of theMfs. From the available papers [the enquiry could find no sign that] she ever actually had forwarded anything to them", however.[23] They thought she had probably contributed by identifying people who might be recruited for MfS "operational work". The enquiry reported that "from the middle of 1966 till 1971, the point of formal termination on Stasi operations in connection with "IM Gisela", no documents had been provided evidencing"IM activity" by Luft.[23]
By 1995 theStasi records had been archived and citizens had a statutory right to access them, whether for purposes of academic research or simply to understand what personal information the East German security services had held on their movements and contacts. In June 1995 Christa Luft made a personal application to theGauck Commission (as the relevant agency was then known) to try and find out what information the Stasis had held on her. In respect of her "IM Gisela" cover name there were no significant surprises. However, she was unnerved to find out that in 1977 the security services had launched a surveillance operation ("Operative Personenkontrolle" / OPK) against her. Luft's work had given her far more access to foreigners than most East German citizens, and there had been concerns that she might betray state secrets to theWest German intelligence services.[23] She was particularly troubled to learn that in 1977 the security services had arranged to obtain a duplicate key to her apartment. The key had remained in the hands of the Stasi until the organisation dissolved in 1990. After that it had been handed over to theStasi Records Agency with all the other papers. Luft was indignant that no one from the records agency had bothered to tell her that they were holding a copy of her front door key.[23]
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