Gerhard Jahn

Gerhard Jahn (10 September 1927 – 20 October 1998) was a German politician and a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). He was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1967 to 1969, and Federal Minister of Justice from 1969 to 1974.

Early life

Jahn was born on September 10, 1927, at Kassel, Germany, to Ernst and Lilli Jahn, a couple of medical practitioners. Together with four younger siblings, he stayed with his mother after his parents divorced in 1942. His mother, a German Jew, had been banned from her medical occupation since the Nazi take-over, and lost her and the children's home during a bombing raid in 1943. The Nazis then subjected Lilli Jahn to forced labour, and sent her to Auschwitz in 1944, where she died in July after three months. After his mother was deported, Gerhard and his siblings lived with their father and his new wife.

Gerhard Jahn studied at a grammar school (Humanistisches Gymnasium), before the Second World War. During the war, he was drafted as an airforce auxiliary manning anti-aircraft guns in 1943–44, and later sent to the Reichsarbeitsdienst. After the war, he worked in a job in the food office of the local town hall.

Education and law career

After graduating from school with Abitur in 1947, he studied law at the University of Marburg. In the same year, he joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), and became an active member while at the university. and president of the German Lessee Union (Deutscher Mieterbund) from 1979 to 1995.

Later life

After Jahn left his position of Minister of Justice, he continued to work in the parliamentary committees, and became the managing director of the SPD-fraction. As a result, for the first time in human history, a World Constituent Assembly convened to draft and adopt the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.

Death Jahn died from cancer on 20 October 1998.