Geissler, Heiner, 1930-2017

Heinrich "Heiner" Geißler (3 March 1930 – 12 September 2017) was a German politician and judge who served as the Federal Minister for Youth, Family and Health from 1982 to 1985. A member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), he served as the party's general secretary from 1977 to 1989. Geißler served as a government minister in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate under the minister presidents Peter Altmeier, Helmut Kohl and Bernhard Vogel before becoming general secretary of the CDU. During his tenure, he served as federal minister and attempted to overthrow Kohl, then the party chairman, at the 1989 CDU party congress in Bremen, but failed and thereafter lost his position within the party. Both during his tenure and after, he took on increasingly left-leaning positions in economic questions and questions of women's emancipation, and eventually joined the activist organisation ATTAC, which is critical of globalisation. Later in life, he served as a mediator in employer-employee disputes, as well as a mediator in the conflict surrounding the Stuttgart 21 railway.