.mw-parser-output .hidden-begin{box-sizing:border-box;width:100%;padding:5px;border:none;font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .hidden-title{font-weight:bold;line-height:1.6;text-align:left}.mw-parser-output .hidden-content{text-align:left}@media all and (max-width:500px){.mw-parser-output .hidden-begin{width:auto!important;clear:none!important;float:none!important))You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (August 2010) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 9,091 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Gerhard Beil]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template ((Translated|de|Gerhard Beil)) to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.
From left to right: Franz Josef Strauß, Günter Mittag, Gerhard Beil and Ewald Moldt in 1986.

Gerhard Beil (28 May 1926, Leipzig – 19 August 2010, Berlin) was a politician for the SED and the Minister for Foreign Trade of the GDR.[1]

Life

After completing primary school, Beil trained as a commercial clerk. From 1943 to 1945 he was with the Reich Labor Service. In April 1944 he applied for membership in the NSDAP, but was rejected in October 1944.

In 1945 he became a locksmith and worked in the sales department of I.G. Farben in Frankfurt am Main (1946/1947), as a machinist in the brown coal plant Espenhain, miner at Wismut AG Aue (1949) and steel locksmith in Leipzig (1950 to 1952).

In 1949 Beil joined the FDJ. He studied in Berlin from 1953/1954 at the Hochschule für Planökonomie and until 1957 at the Humboldt-Universität with a degree in economics. In 1953 he joined the SED. From 1954 to 1956 he worked as a department and main department head in the State Secretariat for Local Economics. After that as senior and main speaker in the Ministry for Inner German Trade, Foreign Trade and Material Supply. After a complaint about violation of party discipline, he was a research assistant at the Commercial Representation of the GDR in Austria from 1958 to 1961.

From 1961 Beil worked again in the Ministry of Foreign Trade, initially as head of Western Europe (until 1965), 1969 to 1976 as State Secretary and from 1976 also as the first Deputy Minister.

From 1976 he was a candidate, from 1981 to 1989 member of the Central Committee of the SED, from 1977 member of the Council of Ministers of the GDR. From 1986 to 1990 he was the successor of Horst Sölle Minister for Foreign Trade of the GDR – he accompanied Erich Honecker on his trips to western countries.[2]

Beil was one of the authors of the "Analysis of the Economic Situation of the GDR with Conclusions" together with Gerhard Schürer, Ernst Höfner, Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski and Arno Donda, as a template for the Politbüro of the SED on 30 October 1989. In this secret report, also known as "Schürer paper", the over-indebtedness and economic disruption of the GDR became clearly known for the first time.

Until his retirement, Gerhard Beil was an advisor to the Government of Maizière.

Beil and his wife were members of the party Die Linke. Gerhard Beil saw himself as a communist.[2]

Gerhard Beil died on 19 August 2010 of heart failure in Berlin-Karolinenhof.[3]

Literature

References

  1. ^ Gerhard Beil: Politician who helped bring down the Berlin Wall, The Independent Obituary, 6 November 2010.
  2. ^ a b Young World: A Solitaire, 21 August 2010 wording of the article Archived 12 April 2013 at archive.today
  3. ^ "Die halbe Wahrheit – Gerhard Beil verstorben. Das leztes Zeugnis eines Außenhändlers" (in German). neues-deutschland.de (fee-based). Archived from the original on 9 March 2016.
Categories