Bernhard Quandt

{{Infobox officeholder

| name = Bernhard Quandt

| image = Bundesarchiv Bild 183-57000-0706, Berlin, V. SED-Parteitag, 7.Tag.jpg

| image_size =

| caption = Quandt in 1958

| order =

| office = First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party
in Bezirk Schwerin

|1blankname = {{nowrap|Second Secretary}}

|1namedata = {{unbulleted list|Heinz Bendig|Heinrich Mosler|Johann Raskop|Heinz Ziegner}}

| term_start = 1 August 1952

| term_end = 28 January 1974

| predecessor = Karl Mewis {{small|(as First Secretary of the SED in Mecklenburg)}}

| successor = Heinz Ziegner

| office1 = Minister-President of Mecklenburg

| term_start1 = 24 August 1951

| term_end1 = 23 July 1952

| predecessor1 = Kurt Bürger

| successor1 = Position abolished

{{Collapsed infobox section begin |last=yes |Mecklenburg Cabinet

|titlestyle=border:1px dashed lightgrey;}}{{Infobox officeholder |embed=yes

|office4 = Minister of Agriculture and Forestry{{efn|name=fn1|as Minister of Agriculture from February 1948 to March 1949 and September to November 1950}}

|1blankname4 = {{nowrap|Minister-President}}

|1namedata4 = {{ubl|Wilhelm Höcker|Kurt Bürger|himself}}

| term_start4 = 10 February 1948

| term_end4 = 23 July 1952

| predecessor4 = Otto Möller

| successor4 = Position abolished{{Collapsed infobox section end}}}}

{{Collapsed infobox section begin |last=yes |Volkskammer

|titlestyle=border:1px dashed lightgrey;}}{{Infobox officeholder |embed=yes

| office3 = Member of the Volkskammer
for Schwerin-Stadt, Schwerin-Land, Gadebusch, Sternberg

| term_start3 = 3 December 1958

| term_end3 = 5 April 1990

| predecessor3 = multi-member district

| successor3 = Constituency abolished{{Collapsed infobox section end}}}}

| birth_date = {{birth date|1903|04|14|df=y}}

| birth_place = Rostock, Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, German Empire {{small|(now Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany)}}

| residence =

| occupation = {{hlist|Politician|Party Functionary|Machinist}}

| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1999|08|02|1903|04|14}}

| death_place = Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany

| spouse =

| children =

| party = Party of Democratic Socialism
{{small|(1989–1999)}}

| otherparty = Socialist Unity Party
{{small|(1946–1989)}}
Communist Party of Germany
{{small|(1923–1946)}}
Social Democratic Party
{{small|(1920–1923)}}

| alma_mater = {{Plainlist|

"Karl Marx" Party Academy

}}

| awards = {{hlist|Patriotic Order of Merit, 1st class|Banner of Labor|Order of Karl Marx|Star of Peoples' Friendship}}

| website =

| module2 = {{collapsible list

| title = Central institution membership

| bullets = on

| 1958–1989: Full member,
Central Committee

}}

----

{{collapsible list

| title = Other offices held

| bullets = on

| 1973–1989: Member, State Council

| 1946–1948: Member,
Landtag of Mecklenburg

| 1946–1948: Second Secretary,
Socialist Unity Party in Mecklenburg

| 1945–1946: District Administrator,
Güstrow district

}}

Bernhard Quandt (14 April 1903 – 2 August 1999) was a German politician and party functionary of the Socialist Unity Party (SED).

Quandt became politically active in the waning years of the Weimar Republic for the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), spending several years in the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps during Nazi rule.

He moved to the Soviet occupation zone after the war, where he became a SED functionary. He served as the last Minister-President of Mecklenburg before its dissolution and thereafter as the longtime First Secretary of the Bezirk Schwerin SED before being forced into retirement in 1974.

Life and career

=Early life=

Quandt was born to a single mother; his father was a soldier in the Imperial German Army who died in a riding accident in Parchim four months before Quandt’s birth.{{Cite web |year=2009 |title=Quandt, Bernhard |url=https://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/de/recherche/kataloge-datenbanken/biographische-datenbanken/bernhard-quandt |access-date=2024-10-31 |website=www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de |series=Wer war wer in der DDR? |publisher=Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship |language=de}}{{Cite book |last=Pelen |first=Lars |title=Mecklenburger in der deutschen Geschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts |date= |publisher=Ingo Koch Verlag |year=2001 |isbn=978-3-935319-22-5 |editor-last=Buchsteiner |editor-first=Ilona |location=Rostock |pages=331–348 |language=de |editor-last2=Palme |editor-first2=Ulrike}}

The family—his mother had since married a carpenter—lived in Rostock and Wismar. At six, he attended elementary school there. In 1912, the family moved to Gielow, where his mother ran a small farm. He began training as an iron turner in 1917 and worked as a journeyman.

=Early political career=

File:Bernhard Quandt Dachau Arolsen Archives.jpg

In 1920, he joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and worked in Hamburg from 1922, switching to the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1923.

He became politically active, serving in 1927 as a municipal representative of Gielow and local leader of his party in Waren/Stavenhagen. He also briefly served as a member of the Landtag of the Free State of Mecklenburg-Schwerin on the eve of the Nazis' rise to power in 1932/1933. He held various jobs.

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, he was repeatedly detained and eventually interned from October 1939, first in the Sachsenhausen and from March 1940 in the Dachau concentration camp, where he was freed by French troops.

=Mecklenburg=

After the war, he became the First Secretary of the KPD in Güstrow and was appointed district administrator of Güstrow district by the Soviet Military Administration.{{Cite book |last=Walberg |first=Ernst-Jürgen |url=https://www.ndr.de/geschichte/bernhardquandtoriginal100.pdf |title=Erinnerungen für die Zukunft: Geschichten und Geschichte aus dem Norden der DDR |last2=Balzer |first2=Thomas |date= |publisher=J.H.W. Dietz |others=Norddeutscher Rundfunk |year=1999 |isbn=978-3-8012-0261-3 |location=Bonn |pages=44-53 |language=de |oclc=ocm41560909 |access-date=2024-10-31}} In 1946, he became Second Secretary, also responsible for organization, of the Mecklenburg KPD, and after their forced merger with the SPD, of the Mecklenburg SED.{{Cite web |year=2006 |title=Landesleitung Mecklenburg der SED (1946 - 1952) |url=https://www.bundesarchiv.de/sed-fdgb-netzwerk/html/gremien.html?mode=SED&cat=7 |access-date=2024-10-31 |website=www.bundesarchiv.de |publisher=German Federal Archives |language=de}}

From February 1948, he served as Minister of Agriculture of Mecklenburg in the cabinets of Wilhelm Höcker and Kurt Bürger, succeeding Otto Möller, who left for a teaching position at the University of Rostock.

When Bürger died after only 8 days in office, Quandt was additionally made Minister-President of Mecklenburg in late August 1951, serving for just under one year before Mecklenburg's dissolution.

=Bezirk Schwerin SED First Secretary=

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-B0311-0004-003, Mestlin, Jugendweihe, Feierstunde.jpg]]

Following the dissolution of states in the GDR in 1952, Quandt became the First Secretary of the SED in Bezirk Schwerin,{{Cite web |year=2006 |title=Bezirksleitung Schwerin der SED (1952 - 1990) |url=https://www.bundesarchiv.de/sed-fdgb-netzwerk/html/gremien.html?mode=SED&cat=8 |access-date=2024-07-07 |website=www.bundesarchiv.de |publisher=German Federal Archives |language=de}}{{Cite web |last=Hufmann |first=Matthias |date=2014-04-07 |title=Zum Reinhören: Quandt und der Sound des Untergangs |url=https://dieschweriner.de/diegeschichte/zum-reinhoeren-quandt-und-der-sound-des-untergangs-1071 |access-date=2024-10-31 |website=dieschweriner.de |language=de}} the second most populous of the three Bezirke created from Mecklenburg. Quandt additionally became a full member of the Central Committee of the SED in June (V. Party Congress), serving until its collective resignation in December 1989, and of the Volkskammer in December, nominally representing a constituency in the northwest of his Bezirk.{{Cite book |url=https://www.gvoon.de/art/dokumente/1986/volkskammer-ddr-9-wahlperiode-1986-1990/pdf/volkskammer-ddr-9-wahlperiode-1986-1990-seite_003.pdf |title=Volkskammer der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik 1986-1990 |publisher=VEB Staatsverlag der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik |year=1987 |location=Berlin |pages=41 |language=de |access-date=2024-10-31}}

In October 1973, Quandt was also elected to the State Council, the GDR's collective head of state, succeeding the deceased Walter Ulbricht.

During his time as First Secretary, Quandt successfully opposed the SED Politburo's decisions to construct multi-story prefabricated housing developments in rural areas, as he believed they would "ruin" the traditional village landscape. He was a supporter of land reform and the new farmer program.{{Cite book |last=Fischer |first=Gerhard |title=Landwirte im Widerstand: 1933 - 1945 |date= |publisher=Gesellschaft der Freunde und Förderer der Agrar- und Umweltwiss. Fak. der Univ. Rostock |others= |year=2005 |isbn=978-3-86009-288-0 |location=Rostock |pages=67 |language=de}}

Quandt was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver in 1955, the honor clasp to this order in 1969, the Banner of Labor in 1965, the Order of Karl Marx in 1973 and 1988 and the Star of Peoples' Friendship in 1978.

=Retirement=

In January 1974, on the instigation of party leadership, Quandt was forced into retirement.{{Cite web |last=Seidel |first=Jürgen |date=2006-10-26 |title=Mitfühlend und hart |url=https://www.nd-aktuell.de/artikel/99230.mitfuehlend-und-hart.html |access-date=2024-07-07 |website=nd-aktuell.de |publisher=Neues Deutschland |language=de}} On 28 January 1974, Heinz Ziegner, his Second Secretary, was appointed as the new First Secretary.

Quandt was allowed to remain in the Central Committee, Volkskammer and State Council, but was transferred to a politically irrelevant position at the Committee of Antifascist Resistance Fighters, a SED-controlled mass organization, chairing their Bezirk Schwerin Committee from 1974 to 1989.

=Peaceful Revolution=

At the last session of the Central Committee on 3 December 1989, he tearfully{{Cite news |last=Bölsche |first=Jochen |last2=Repke |first2=Irina |last3=Schnibben |first3=Cordt |date=1999-11-28 |title=»Nicht Rache, nein, Rente!« |url=https://www.spiegel.de/politik/nicht-rache-nein-rente-a-14453ff6-0002-0001-0000-000015158106?context=issue |access-date=2024-10-31 |work=Der Spiegel |language=de |issn=2195-1349}} called for the reintroduction of the death penalty and the summary execution of all those (the "criminal gang of the old Politburo") who had brought disgrace (referring to the loss of power due to the revolutionary events in autumn 1989) upon the party (SED). "We abolished the death penalty in the State Council. I am in favor of reintroducing it and summarily executing everyone who brought such disgrace upon our party!"

In 1990, he was elected to the Council of Elders of the now-renamed SED-PDS.

Quandt died in 1999 at the age of 96, as the last former Minister-President of a GDR state.