Bernd Meier (politician)

Bernd Meier (28 December 1944 - 30 May 2005) was a German politician (SED/PDS) and official of the FDJ. He served as first party secretary of the party leadership ("Bezirksleitung") for the Frankfurt (Oder) region and then as a member of the national parliament (Volkskammer) during the eventful run-up to reunification.

Life

Bernd Meier was born, the youngest of six siblings, during the closing months of the Second World War at Cainsdorf (then just outside Zwickau). His father, a carpenter, was killed in the war. He attended school locally between 1952 and 1962, joining the Free German Youth ("Freie Deutsche Jugend" / FDJ - effectively the youth wing of East Germany's ruling Socialist Unity Party in 1960, and on leaving school undertaking an apprenticeship as a machinist at the Crossen-Mulde paper mill. After that he worked as an insulation-plumber at the PCK Petro-chemicals plant at Schwedt.

In 1963, the year of his nineteenth birthday, he joined the ruling SED (party). During 1964/65 he undertook his military service as a public service worker in Karl-Marx Stadt (as Chemnitz was known at that time). Next he was employed at the Buna Schkopau Chemicals plant and then back at the PCK plant at Schwedt. During 1967/68 studied at the regional "Karl Marx" Party Academy in Frankfurt. Between 1968 and 1971 he served as district secretary for the FDJ in the Angermünde and Schwedt district. Then, between 1971 and 1974, he studied at the party's "Karl Marx" academy, emerging with a degree in Social sciences. The degree and the institution that had awarded it marked him out as a party high-flyer, and between 1974 and 1978 he served as second secretary of the Frankfurt region FDJ. He then, in January 1979, succeeded Hans Andreas as the organisation's national first secretary, also becoming an FDJ national council member.