Eveline Klett (born 9 October 1949) is a German former politician who was a member of the State Council of East Germany, the country's collective head of state, from 1986 until 1989. [1]
Klett was born in Vielau, near Zwickau, in 1949. She completed an apprenticeship as a turner. [2] Later, in 1970–71, she went to an SED party academy ( Bezirksparteischule ). [1]
She had joined the Free German Youth in 1964, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in 1969, and the Democratic Women's League of Germany in 1976. Also in 1976, Klett became a member of the Volkskammer , which she remained until the 1990 East German general election. [1]
Klett was considered one of the token women in the East German leadership. She lived and worked in Zwickau, and would travel to Berlin at least once per month to attend political meetings. She retired from politics after the Peaceful Revolution and German reunification. [3]
East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic, was a country in Central Europe from its formation on 7 October 1949 until its reunification with West Germany on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, it was generally viewed as a communist state and described itself as a socialist "workers' and peasants' state". The economy of the country was centrally planned and state-owned. Although the GDR had to pay substantial war reparations to the Soviets, its economy became the most successful in the Eastern Bloc.
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic from the country's foundation in 1949 until its dissolution after the Peaceful Revolution in 1989. It was a Marxist–Leninist communist party, established in 1946 as a merger of the East German branches of the Communist Party of Germany and Social Democratic Party of Germany.
Gregor Florian Gysi is a German attorney, former president of the Party of the European Left and a prominent politician of The Left political party.
These are lists of political office-holders in East Germany. The political leadership of East Germany was distributed between several offices. However, until the Volkskammer removed a section in the GDR's constitution guaranteeing their monopoly on political power on 1 December 1989, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) held ultimate power and authority over state and government. Thus, the head of the SED's Politburo of the Central Committee was the de facto leader of the country.
Max Seydewitz was a German politician. Between 1947 and 1952 he was the Minister-President of Saxony in the German Democratic Republic.
Ingeburg "Inge" Lange was an East German politician.
Hans Chemnitzer was a former East German national and regional politician. He was relieved of his party duties on 10 November 1989 and then expelled from the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) on 13 December 1989.
Maria Schneider is a German former (SED) politician. She was a member of the East German State Council between 1967 and 1971.
Ilse Thiele was an East German politician. She was a member of the powerful Central Committee of the country's ruling SED (party) between 1954 and 1989. She served as the Chair of the national Democratic Women's League from 1953 till 1989.
Ehrhart Neubert is a retired German Evangelical minister and theologian.
Christa Schmidt is a retired German politician (CDU). She served as a minister in the last government of East Germany. She had built an earlier career as a teacher and educationalist.
Herta Geffke was a German activist and politician who resisted Nazism. After 1945 she became a member of the Central Party Control Commission of the SED in the Soviet occupation zone, identified as a "true Stalinist" and feared on account of her interrogation methods.
Jutta Braband is a former German politician. In the German Democratic Republic she was a civil rights activist who after 1990 became a PDS member of the Germany parliament (Bundestag). Her parliamentary career ended in May 1992 after it had become known that fifteen years earlier she had worked for the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) as a registered informant .
Ernst Lohagen was a German politician. He was a member both of the German parliament (Reichstag) before the Nazis took power in 1933 and of the East German equivalent assembly between 1946 and 1952, although under the Leninist power structure applied in East Germany it was his membership of the party Central Committee till 1952 that was of greater significance.
Bertram Wieczorek is a German physician and former politician (CDU).
Linda Teuteberg is a German lawyer and politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP). Serving as a member of the Bundestag since 2017, she was elected as General Secretary of the FDP on 26 April 2019 and thereby became part of the party's leadership around chairman Christian Lindner. Lindner asked for and received her resignation effective 19 September 2020.
Anni Neumann is a retired East German politician who served between 1967 and 1971 as a member of the State Council of East Germany.
Yvonne Ruth Killmer was an East German journalist and party official. During the 1960s she served as head of the government press office. She later became editor in chief of Freies Wort, a mass circulation party newspaper. Subsequently she became the first editor in chief at the women's magazine, Für Dich. Between 1968 and 1983 she was as editor in chief of the East German bi-monthly fashion magazine, Sibylle.
Herbert Häber was a German politician and high-ranking party functionary of the Socialist Unity Party (SED).
Käte Selbmann was a German politician who played a key role in the early development of the women's policy of East Germany. A member of the central committees of the Socialist Unity Party and the Democratic Women's League, she also served as a member of the Volkskammer from 1950 until 1954.