Gerhard Baumgärtel

Gerhard Baumgärtel (25 November 1931 – 27 July 1997) was a German architect, university lecturer and politician of the East German Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

In the German Democratic Republic, he served as the longtime Lord Mayor of Weimar in the 1980s and as the GDR's penultimate Construction Minister during the Peaceful Revolution.

Life and career Early career After an apprenticeship as a carpenter, Baumgärtel studied interior design at the Erfurt School of Applied Arts and from 1954 to 1960 at the University of Architecture and Civil Engineering Weimar (HAB).

After working as an architect and project manager at VEB Polygraph Leipzig, he was a research assistant at the HAB from 1962 to 1969, senior assistant from 1969 to 1974, and lecturer after an additional study program at the Budapest University of Technology until 1982, then honorary professor. a position traditionally held by a member of the CDU, succeeding Franz Kirchner, who retired. Baumgärtel additionally became member of the Volkskammer in 1986.

Afterwards, Baumgärtel worked as an architect until retiring in 1995. He died in 1997 at the age of 65 in Weimar.