Monday, June 22, 2015

Schalck-Golodkowski dies

Former East German and SED functionary Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski has died from prostate cancer at home in Tegernsee.

Alongside Erich Honecker and his economics secretary Günter Mittag, Schalck-Golodowski was one of the most powerful men in the former German Democratic Republic.

In 1983 he did a famous/infamous deal with CSU leader Franz Josef Strauß, which saved the GDR from bankruptcy.

His paternal grandfather was a senior Russian official in the Depatment of Finance in Gomel, Belarus.

Golodkowski's father was an offficer in the army of the Tsar before fleeing from the Bolsheviks and later he was in charge of the Wehrmacht Russian language translation school at Berlin-Moabit, close to the Dominican priory in Oldenburger Straße.

And he nearly made it to becoming Secretary of the SED and the man in charge of the GDR. The Wall fell and Germany was reunited.

1 comment:

Gerard said...

Proof-read? Is it true in the case of grammar and spelling, as in other domains, that "we teach best what we most need to learn?"

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