Rudi Georgi

Dr. Rudi Georgi (25 December 1927 in Bockau – 18 March 2020) was a German politician and public official in the German Democratic Republic.

Between 1973 and 1989 he served as a junior member of the country's Council of Ministers, being one of the (at times more than fifteen) government ministers responsible for an industrial sector deemed important enough to justify having its own minister: he was the "Minister for the Production of Tooling and Processing Machinery".

Life Georgi was born into a working-class family on Christmas Day 1927 in a small industrial town in the heart of Saxony's rich mining region, some 20 km (12 miles) north-west of the German frontier with Bohemia. He attended schools in nearby Aue before undertaking a clerical apprenticeship at the cutlery factory there. In April 1966 he received his doctorate, again from Karl Marx University in Leipzig.

Dr. Georgi's transfer into government came in 1963 when he was appointed Minister for the Construction of Industrial Machinery and Vehicles. The country's constitution by now asserted the leading role of The Party, so that in some ways it was the primary task of government ministers simply to carry out party policy, though at the higher levels the same individuals were generally in positions of power and influence in both institutions, making the distinction relatively unimportant. By 1963 there were approximately fifteen government ministers covering departments with areas of responsibility not dissimilar from their western equivalents. Additionally, however, by the time of the New Economic System of Planning and Direction (Neues Ökonomisches System der Planung und Leitung) established (formally) in 1961, there were a further (approximately) fifteen ministers with responsibility for individual industry sectors. From the perspective of Western observers, the industry sector-specific ministers came into focus when they appeared on East German stands at international trade fairs. In 1976, following a reconfiguration of industry ministry areas of responsibility, Georgi became the "Minister for the Production of Tooling and Processing Machinery". The construction of heavy plant and equipment was a traditional strength of the German economy which by now the Comecon planners were keep to promote, and Georgi was evidently good at his job, since unusually among his industry minister colleagues in 1976, he was still in post in 1989. Within the party his progress was slower. It was usual for candidates for membership of the Party Central Committee to remain on the list for several years, but Rudi Georgi was a candidate for Central Committee membership for nine years, between 1967 and 1976, which represented an unusually long wait. Between 1976 and 1989 he was one of the approximately 125 members of the Party Central Committee, however.

With his colleagues, he resigned his party and government offices in November/December 1989/1990.

Awards and honours 1964 Banner of Labor 1970 Patriotic Order of Merit 1978 Banner of Labor 1986 Patriotic Order of Merit

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