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Kurt Gregor

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Kurt Gregor
Minister for Foreign Trade and Inner German Trade
In office
1952–1954
Prime MinisterOtto Grotewohl
Personal details
Born21 August 1907
Dresden, German Empire
Died5 May 1990(1990-05-05) (aged 82)
East Berlin, East Germany
Political party

Kurt Gregor (1907–1990) was a German socialist politician who served as the minister for foreign and inner-German trade between 1952 and 1954 in the East German Council of Ministers.

Early life and education

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Gregor was born on 21 August 1907 in Dresden, and his father was a worker.[1] After attending elementary school in Dresden, he did an apprenticeship as a mechanic from 1923 to 1926 and practiced this profession from 1926 to 1927 in Dresden.[2] He attended evening courses at a technical school in Dresden, obtaining the technical qualification in 1929.[3]

Career

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Gregor was a technician and then an engineer in the machine factories in Dresden between 1927 and 1932.[2] He joined the Communist Party of Germany and Rote Hilfe, German affiliate of the International Red Aid, in 1931.[4] He worked as a technical director in the USSR from 1932 to 1938.[3] He headed the standards department and was the technical manager in machine works in Dresden between 1938 and 1945.[2]

Gregor joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in 1946.[4] He was the head of the economic planning department in the Saxon state government from 1946 to 1950.[3] He served as the state secretary at the Ministry of Heavy Industry in East Berlin between 1950 and 1951.[4] Then, he was the state secretary at the Ministry for Foreign Trade and Inner German Trade for two terms, from 1951 to 1952 and from 1954 to 1956.[2]

Gregor was appointed minister for foreign and inner German trade in September 1952, succeeding Georg Handke in the post.[5] Gregor remained in office until November 1954.[6] Heinrich Rau was appointed minister for foreign and inner German trade in April 1955.[5]

Gregor worked as the first deputy chairman of the state planning commission between 1956 and 1961.[4] He was a member of the East German Parliament from 1958 to 1963 and was the deputy secretary of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance in Moscow.[3][7]

Death

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Gregor died in Berlin on 5 May 1990.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Kurt Gregor" (in German). DDR Center. Retrieved 6 August 2023.
  2. ^ a b c d "Kurt Gregor" (in German). Munzinger. Retrieved 6 August 2023. Entry from Internationales Biographisches Archiv
  3. ^ a b c d Bernd-Rainer Barth; Helmut Müller-Enbergs. "Gregor, Kurt". kommunismusgeschichte.de (in German). Retrieved 6 August 2023. citing Wer war wer in der DDR
  4. ^ a b c d Dierk Hoffmann; Andreas Malycha, eds. (2016). Erdöl, Mais und Devisen: Die ostdeutsch-sowjetischen Wirtschaftsbeziehungen 1951-1967. Eine Dokumentation (in German). Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 383–384. ISBN 978-3-11-046413-9.
  5. ^ a b Ursula Hoffmann-Lange (1971). Die Veränderungen in der Sozialstruktur des Ministerrates der DDR: 1949-1969 (in German). Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag. p. 99. ISBN 978-3-7700-0281-8.
  6. ^ Christian F. Ostermann; Malcolm Byrne, eds. (2001). Uprising in East Germany, 1953: The Cold War, the German Question, and the First Major Upheaval behind the Iron Curtain. Budapest: Central European University Press. p. 424. doi:10.7829/j.ctv280b6bh. ISBN 978-963-9241-57-2.
  7. ^ "Gregor, Kurt". Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur (in German). Retrieved 6 August 2023.