Bernd Meier

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. Between 1985 and 1989 Bernd Meier held the key position of secretary to the national party leadership at the Schwedt Petro-chemicals conglomerate where he was also party organiser on behalf of the Party Central Committee. On 3 December 1989 he was elected a member of the working group mandated to prepare for the extraordinary SED party conference, By now it was obvious that the SED was no longer a "Marxist-Leninist party". During the conference the party accepted a proposal from Gregor Gysi, who had become party chairman earlier in the month, that the party adopt a new name, "Party of Democratic Socialism" / PDS in order to distance the reformed party from its repressive past. Between February and October 1990 Bernd Meier was a member of the PDS presidium. At East Germany's first (and as matters turned out last)free general election, held in March 1990, he was elected as a PDS member of the country's parliament ("Volkskammer"), representing the Frankfurt/Oder electoral district. He served as "business manager" (als " Parlamentarischer Geschäftsführer") for the (massively reduced) PDS group in the assembly.

Reunification took place, formally, in October 1990. Bernd Meier was not among the PDS Volkskammer members who transferred to the Bundestag, and he lived his final fifteen years away from the public sphere.