Werner Schulz

Werner Gustav Schulz (22 January 1950 – 9 November 2022) was a German politician of Alliance '90/The Greens. Trained in food technology at the Humboldt University of Berlin, he worked as a research assistant. He was an activist for peace ecology and human rights in several oppositional groups from the 1970s. He lost his university job in 1980 when he protested against the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. In the Peaceful Revolution, he was in 1989 a founding member of the New Forum, representing the group at the Round Table. He was elected to the first freely elected Volkskammer. After German reunification, he was a member of the German Bundestag from 1990 to 2005, and a member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2009 to 2014.

Early life and career Schulz was born in Zwickau, then part of East Germany, on 22 January 1950. From 1964 to 1968, he attended the . His father recommended him not to join the Young Pioneers.

Schulz received a degree in food technology at the Humboldt University of Berlin in 1974. From 1974 he worked as a research assistant at the university. He was dismissed in 1980 because he protested against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He then worked as a research assistant at the Institut für Sekundärrohstoffwirtschaft, dealing with recycling technology. From 1988, he directed the department Umwelthygiene of the Kreishygieneinspektion Berlin-Lichtenberg.

When Chancellor Gerhard Schröder engineered the loss of a no-confidence vote in Parliament and asked President Horst Köhler to allow an early vote in 2005, Schulz and Jelena Hoffmann of Schröder's Social Democrats filed a complaint before the Federal Constitutional Court against the dissolution of parliament. Ex-President Gauck described Schulz as "a tireless fighter for a policy based on democratic values".

Publications