Bruno Kiesler

Bruno Kiesler (22 December 1925 – 10 June 2011) was a German farmer, politician and party functionary of the Socialist Unity Party (SED).

Kiesler rose to prominence after being hailed as a Stakhanovite activist in East German agriculture.

He held various positions in the GDR's agricultural sector, ultimately serving as head of the powerful SED Central Committee Agriculture Department for over twenty years before being pushed out in late 1981 for disagreeing with the SED's economic policies.

Life and career Early career Kiesler was born in the East Prussian town of Stallupönen to a telegraph worker. He completed an apprenticeship as an automobile mechanic from 1940 to 1942 after attending elementary school. From 1942 until May 1945, he was conscripted into the Reich Labor Service and the Wehrmacht. He was captured by the British in Eutin.

After returning from captivity, he initially worked as a coachman on the estate of the von Itzenplitz family in 1945 and became the chairman of the Anti-Fascist Youth Committee in Grieben. Following the land reform, he became a tractor operator at the Peasants Mutual Aid Association in Grieben in 1946.

Bezirk Magdeburg career On 4 December 1949, he was elected to the board of the Saxony-Anhalt SED. In July 1950, he participated in the III. Party Congress of the SED in Berlin and was elected to the Congress' Presidium. then southern Bezirk Magdeburg. Initially, he was part of the FDJ faction and, from 1957, the SED faction. and the Institute for Agricultural Economics in Bernburg, graduating as an agricultural economist (Dipl. agr. oec.). Additionally he was elected to the Central Committee of the SED as a candidate member in April 1967 (VII. Party Congress), being elevated to full member in June 1971 (VIII. Party Congress). From 1968 to 1983, he was a member of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the GDR.

Long retirement In November 1981, he was removed as head of the Agricultural Department due to conflicts with the SED's economic policies and was succeeded by Bruno Lietz.

Kiesler had to retire from both the Central Committee and the Volkskammer in April (XI. Party Congress) and June 1986 respectively. He was initially given a job in 1981 at the Academy of Agricultural Sciences as director of the newly established project technology institute for rational energy use. In 1982, he was transferred to a politically irrelevant position at the League for Peoples' Friendship of the GDR, a SED-controlled mass organization, initially as secretary, additionally chairing the organisation's Audit Commission from 1986.

He retired shortly after German reunification, on 1 December 1990, and died in June 2011 at the age of 85.