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Gerhart Rudolf Baum was a German politician and lawyer. He was born on 28 October 1932 in Dresden.
Baum served as Parliamentary State Secretary to Federal Ministers of the Interior Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Werner Maihofer from 1972 to 1978.
He then held the position of Federal Minister of the Interior from June 1978 to September 1982 in the Schmidt II and Schmidt III cabinets.
Early Life and Career
Baum was born to a Polish mother and a Ukraine father. I’m 1953, he graduated from Cologne-Nippes High School and went on to study law at the University of Cologne, passing his first state examination in 1957.
He passed the second state examination in 1961 after finishing his legal training. He was a member of the management team at the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations (BDA) from 1962 to 1972.
He returned to practicing law after a decade in government, rising to the position of senior partner in the Düsseldorf-based legal firm Baum, Reiter & Collegen around 1990.
Baum first became politically active with the Young Democrats, serving as the organization’s federal chairman from 1966 to 1968.
He had been a member of the Free Democratic Party since 1954 and held several leadership roles within the party. From 1962 to 1972, he served as district chairman of the FDP in Cologne, and from 1966 to 1998, he was a member of the FDP federal executive committee. Additionally, he was part of the FDP state executive committee in North Rhine-Westphalia from 1970 to 1990.
From 1982 to 1991 he also served as one of the FDP’s deputy federal chairmen, playing a key role in shaping party policies and strategies.
Baum served as the chairman of the FDP parliamentary group and a member of the Cologne City Council from 1969 until 1973. He also served in the German Bundestag from 1972 to 1994.
Baum was appointed the Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of the Interior in the Brandt II Cabinet on December 15, 1972.
Was Gerhart Baum Married?
Yes. He married his first wife Inge Baum and had three children with her. He later divorced her and married Renate Liesmann Baum until his death. He had a child with her, Julia Baum.
What was Gerhart Baum’s Cause of Death?
Baum passed away on 15 February 2025 at the Cologne University Hospital. He was 92 years old. The cause of his death has not been revealed.
