CDU as a three-letter abbreviation can refer to:

Organizations[link]

• Country Development Unit, a non-governmental organization in Afghanistan
• CentrumDemokraternes Ungdom, a youth organization in Denmark

Political parties[link]

• Cameroon Democratic Union, a political party in Cameroon
• Centro Democrático Unido, a political party in El Salvador
• Christian Democratic Union (Germany), a German political party
• Christian Democratic Union (East Germany), a defunct political party
• Christian Democratic Union (Netherlands), a minor political party in the Netherlands between World War I and World War II
• Christian Democratic Union (Ukraine), a political party in Ukraine
• Cristiani Democratici Uniti, a former Italian political party
• Coligação Democrática Unitária, a leftist political coalition in Portugal
• Croatian Democratic Union, a conservative political party in Croatia led by Jadranka Kosor

Technology[link]

• Cash Dispenser Unit, which could be part of a Teller assist unit or an Automated teller machine
• Coolant Distribution Unit, used for water cooling in data centers
• Control Display Unit, a device used in remote operated gassfields
• Control Display Unit, a device used to access an aircraft Flight Management Computer
• Counter Display Unit, a retail display unit normally sited on a shop counter to encourage consumer impulse purchases
• Critical Dimension Uniformity, a semiconductor lithography quality measure
• Crude Distillation Unit, a distillation column, present in every crude oil refinery. The function of a CDU is to separate the crude oil into its "fractions".

Education[link]

• Catholic Distance University, a worldwide Catholic university based in Hamilton, Virginia, U.S offering theological instruction and degrees via Internet
• Cebu Doctors' University, a medical university in the Philippines
• Charles Darwin University, a university in Darwin, Australia

Health[link]

• Clinical Decisions Unit

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Peter Gauweiler.

Peter Gauweiler (born June 22, 1949 in Munich, Bavaria) is a German politician, and a member of Bavaria's Christian Social Union (CSU) in the German Bundestag. Since 2006, Gauweiler is the Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Foreign cultural and educational policies of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the German Bundestag. From 1990 to 1994, he was Bavarian State Minister for Regional Development and Environment.

In 2008, Gauweiler challenged the German ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon, claiming the treaty unconstitutional. Gauweiler launched a similar challenge to the European Constitution in 2005, but after its failure the Constitutional Court made no ruling and a presidential signature was never given.^[1][2]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Peter Gauweiler, personal website
• Dr. Peter Gauweiler, CDU/CSU, German Bundestag
• Dr. Peter Gauweiler Dr. Peter Gauweiler, Official Facebook fan page
• Germany's Lisbon Treaty Ruling: Brussels Put Firmly in the Back Seat Spiegel International article on how Dr. Peter Gauweiler has persuaded Germany's highest court to restrict the scope and implementation of the Lisbon Treaty.

This article about a German politician is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Gregor Gysi
Member of the Bundestag
Incumbent
Assumed office 18th September 2005
Constituency	Berlin Treptow – Köpenick
Personal details
Born	January 16, 1948 East Berlin, Soviet Zone of Germany
Nationality	German
Political party	Die Linke

Dr. Gregor Gysi (German pronunciation: [ˈɡiːzi]; born 16 January 1948) is a German attorney and key politician of the socialist left-wing political party The Left (Die Linke). He played an important role in the end of communist rule in East Germany in 1989^{[citation needed]}, and was a main figure in the post-reunification Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS). He is well known for his rhetoric talent and is considered one of the best German public speakers.^[1]

Family background[link]

Gysi was born in East Berlin, Soviet Zone of Germany. His father, Klaus Gysi, was a high-ranking official in East Germany, and had been Minister of Culture from 1966 to 1973. His mother, Irene, was the sister of political activist Gottfried Lessing, who was married to the British writer Doris Lessing during his exile in Southern Rhodesia. The surname "Gysi" is of Swiss-German origin.^[2] Both of his parents were of part Jewish ancestry; his paternal grandmother was Jewish, as was one of his maternal great-grandfathers.^[2][3] One of his maternal great-grandmothers was Russian.^[2]

His sister, Gabriele, is an actress, who left East Germany in 1985. Today, she is chief dramaturge at the Volksbühne in Berlin.

Career[link]

Gysi's political career started in the then-ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) of East Germany, to which he was admitted in 1967. In 1971 he became a licensed attorney, and during the 1970s and 1980s defended several prominent dissidents, including Rudolf Bahro, Robert Havemann, Ulrike Poppe, and Bärbel Bohley.

Gregor Gysi (November 1989)

In addition to his legal work, Gysi emerged as one of East Germany's leading Gorbachev-inspired political reformists within the SED, especially towards the end of the 1980s. In 1989, he and a group of lawyers presented a counter-draft to the government's Travel Bill, which authorised mass public demonstrations. This led to a rally on 4 November in which he spoke and called for various reforms, including free elections. In December 1989, he became a member of a special SED party session investigating official corruption and abuse of power.

He led the transformation of the SED into a democratic socialist party which included the quick resignation of all hardliners from the party's leadership; initially renamed the Socialist Unity Party - Party of Democratic Socialism (SED-PDS), it later became simply the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS). Gysi served as its chairman starting in 1990, and in March 1990 was elected to the Volkskammer in the first free election of that body, serving there until it was dissolved upon German reunification on 3 October 1990. In the first post-reunification all-German elections, he was elected to the Bundestag, and served there until 2000. He remained chairman of the PDS through 1998, and then from 1998 to 2000 served as chairman of the party's parliamentary group.

In 1992 allegations were brought against him of having been an "unofficial collaborator" (Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter, IM) or informant of East Germany's Ministry for State Security (the Stasi). He denied these allegations, and the matter was largely dropped due to his parliamentary immunity. In 1995 the Hamburg regional court ruled in Gysi's favour in a complaint against Bärbel Bohley, Gysi's former client, who had accused him of Stasi collaboration. However, the allegations were raised again in 1996, and this time the Bundestag voted to revoke his immunity and proceed with an investigation. In 1998 the Bundestag's immunity committee concluded that Gysi had been a collaborator with the Stasi from 1978 to 1989 under the name IM Notar, and fined him 8,000 Deutsche Marks. However, both the Free Democratic Party and his own PDS disputed the verdict, and Gysi appealed against the finding. Despite the affair, he retained his seat in the Bundestag in the 1998 elections.

In 2000 he resigned as chairman of the PDS's parliamentary group, but continued as an active member of the party. Following the victory in Berlin's 2001 municipal elections of a coalition of the PDS and the more moderate Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), he was elected Senator for Economics, Labour, and Women's Issues and Deputy Mayor. He emphasised practical issues and advocated the reinstitution of some of what he sees as the better aspects of East Germany's system, such as extended child-care hours and a longer school day. After a scandal involving his use of airline "bonus miles" he had acquired on trips as a Bundestag member, he resigned on 31 July 2002 from the Berlin city government. The resignation was a blow to his public "can-do" image, but he has recovered from that to some extent in the wake of increasing public opposition to a number of new policies of the federal government, like the Hartz reforms lowering unemployment benefits to the levels of mere subsistence welfare, which he strongly opposes.

Oskar Lafontaine (left) and Gregor Gysi, election poster, Alexanderplatz, Berlin, 2005

In late 2004 he survived brain surgery and a heart attack. Formerly a heavy smoker, Gysi quit smoking after the crisis on his doctors' advice.

Gysi remained the PDS undisputed front man in many people's minds and continued to appear in public. In May 2005, when Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder announced plans to call an early election in September, many prominent PDS leaders including chair Lothar Bisky called on Gysi to front their campaign. He was a lead candidate of the PDS, winning direct election to the Bundestag for the Berlin Treptow – Köpenick constituency. The PDS fought the election in an alliance with the new western-based Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative (WASG), under the new name The Left Party.PDS, with Gysi at times sharing a platform with WASG leader Oskar Lafontaine, former finance minister and formerly party leader of the SPD. In June 2007, the PDS and WASG formally merged to form a united party called The Left.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gregor Gysi

• Will Germany Go Left of the Left? by Markus Deggerich, Der Spiegel, Sept 25 2009
• Portrait at the website of the parliamentary group of the Left Party
• Biography at Deutsches Historisches Museum