Tino Schwierzina

Tino Antoni Schwierzina (30 May 1927 – 29 December 2003) was a German lawyer and politician. Between May 1990 and January 1991 he served as the first and last freely elected mayor of East Berlin. His term of office was dominated by the fusion of the two halves of Berlin By some criteria Tino Schwierzina was also the last mayor of East Berlin ahead of reunification.

Life

Early years Schwierzina was born in Chorzów in Upper Silesia. From 1933 he attended a school in Magdeburg. In 1944 he was conscripted into the Wehrmacht, and detained by US army as a prisoner of war from 1945 till 1948. and for the "German Peace Committee" ("Deutsche Friedenskomitee"). One of his fellow peace activists at this time was Günter Guillaume: the two became friends and on 12 May 1951 Schwierzina attended Guillaume's wedding as a witness. adding that back then you did not normally recite your "résumé" [to friends].

The lawyer From 1952 Schwierzina was employed as a commercial lawyer, working for various East German enterprises on matters involving foreign trade, notably for the food and drinks sector, and including the VEB Bärensiegel operation. During 1989 a Social Democratic Party (SDP) was revived in the German Democratic Republic. Schwierzina, whose career horizons had doubtless been hampered by his failure to join the country's ruling SED (party), now joined the SDP in November 1989, by creating, with his western counterpart, a reunited Berlin city administration.

Between January 1991 and October 1995 Schwierzina sat as a member of the Berlin regional legislature where he was elected an assembly vice-president and also as Chairman of the Petitions Committee. After he died, at the end of 2003, several of the more heartfelt tributes paid tribute also to Brigitte Schwierzina's skill and care in looking after him during his final years.