H.E. Hans-Dietrich Genscher
Hans Dietrich Genscher is a German statesman, born in Reideburg, Germany in 1927. He trained as a lawyer, studying at Leipzig before coming to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1952. He became secretary-general of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) in 1959, and was minister of the interior for five years before becoming vice-chancellor and foreign minister in 1974 in the coalition government of Helmut Schmidt. He was in this position until 1992. In 1974 he also became Chairman of the FDP, a post to which he was re-elected in 1982. He retained his Cabinet post after 1982 in the coalition between the FDP and the Christian Democrats. In 1992 Genscher became the Honorary Chairman of the FDP, but he didn’t run for a political office any more.
During his 18 years as the foreign minister of Germany Genscher developed a continuous dialogue between east and west. He engaged himself in the development of the European Community as a pre-stage to European Integration and supported sustainably the reform process of the USSR. Together with the chancellor of the federal republic of Germany, Helmuth Kohl, he accompanied and contributed profoundly to the process of the reunification of Germany in autumn 1989. He had built the basis for diplomatic negotiations between all concerned parties, several European countries, the USSR and the USA leading to the fall of the Berlin wall.