Pierre Werner
19th Prime Minister of Luxembourg 21st Prime Minister of Luxembourg
In office 2 March 1959 – 15 June 1974 16 July 1979 – 20 July 1984
Monarch	Charlotte Jean
Preceded by	(1) Pierre Frieden (2) Gaston Thorn
Succeeded by	(1) Gaston Thorn (2) Jacques Santer
Personal details
Born	1913-12-29 Saint-André-lez-Lille, France
Died	2002-06-24 Luxembourg City
Nationality	Luxembourgian
Political party	Christian Social People's Party
Religion	Roman Catholic

Pierre Werner (29 December 1913 - 24 June 2002) was a Luxembourg politician. Pierre Werner was born in Saint-André-lez-Lille, Nord, France to parents from Luxembourg. During the Nazi occupation of Luxembourg (1940–45) Werner, working as a banker, gave clandestine support to the resistance against the occupation forces. After World War 2 he became the Controller of the banking system in his country. He attended the Bretton Woods conference which set up the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Werner entered the Luxembourg government as Finance Minister in 1953, and was 19th and 21st Prime Minister from 1959 to 1974 and from 1979 to 1984. He also served as Minister for Culture.

As Prime minister, Werner, a Christian Democrat, undertook the diversification of the national economy, hard hit by a major Europe-wide crisis in the steel industry, by attracting new industrial investments, as well as financial services to the Grand Duchy. He placed Luxembourg on the map of global satellite communications. He is remembered for having used “tripartite” social mediation (industry, labour and government) to overcome the severe steel crisis which lasted from 1979 to 1984. He placed the process of European integration at the centre of the policy of his country. With friends such as Joseph Bech, Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman, Werner was a determined advocate of European integration. During his terms in office, he negotiated the relocation of several European institutions to Luxembourg.

Werner was instrumental in solving the "empty chair" crisis provoked in 1965 by President Charles de Gaulle who, dissatisfied with the orientations of European integration at that time, had decided France would suspend its participation in meetings with other Member States; Werner persuaded France to resume its seat, thus re-enabling the decision-making process. In 1970, Werner was given the mandate by the heads of State or government to draft, with a group of experts, a blueprint for an economic and monetary union within the EEC. The “Werner Plan” was later revived and extended by Jacques Delors. Its principles were enshrined in the Treaty of Maastricht, paving the way for the single European currency, i.e. the euro.

The Pierre Werner Institute was created in Luxembourg in 2003 at the behest of the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany and Luxembourg (at the time, respectively Dominique de Villepin, Joschka Fischer and Lydie Polfer), Erna Hennicot-Schoepges, then Minister for Culture, universities and research in Luxembourg, having fostered the project. IPW organizes seminars and conferences aimed at promoting better understanding among the 3 founding countries, but also more widely throughout Europe.

Werner, a sponsor of culture and especially music, actively promoted the restoration of Luxembourg's heritage (e.g. Vianden Castle). A keen fan of cricket since living in London, the United Kingdom, in 1930, Werner was Honorary President of the Optimists Cricket Club, which he promoted during, between, and after his premierships.^[1] In his honour, Luxembourg's main cricket ground, the Pierre Werner Cricket Ground in Walferdange, is named after him.

Pierre Werner died on 24 June 2002, in Luxembourg City.

Notes and references[link]

External links[link]

• Bates, Stephen (2002-06-28). "Pierre Werner: the man who dreamed up the euro". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/euro/story/0,11306,745398,00.html. Retrieved 2006-07-15. 

v t e Prime Ministers of Luxembourg Gaspard-Théodore-Ignace de la Fontaine • Jean-Jacques Willmar • Charles-Mathias Simons • Baron de Tornaco • Emmanuel Servais • Baron de Blochausen • Édouard Thilges • Paul Eyschen • Mathias Mongenast • Hubert Loutsch • Victor Thorn • Léon Kauffman • Émile Reuter • Pierre Prüm • Joseph Bech • Pierre Dupong • Joseph Bech • Pierre Frieden • Pierre Werner • Gaston Thorn • Pierre Werner • Jacques Santer • Jean-Claude Juncker

v t e Presidents of the European Council President-in-Office (1975–2009) Liam Cosgrave · Aldo Moro · Gaston Thorn · Joop den Uyl · James Callaghan · Leo Tindemans · Anker Jørgensen · Helmut Schmidt · Valéry Giscard d'Estaing · Jack Lynch · Francesco Cossiga · Charles Haughey · Pierre Werner · Dries van Agt · Margaret Thatcher · Wilfried Martens · Anker Jørgensen · Poul Schlüter · Helmut Kohl · Andreas Papandreou · François Mitterrand · Garret FitzGerald · Bettino Craxi · Jacques Santer · Ruud Lubbers · Margaret Thatcher · Wilfried Martens · Poul Schlüter · Helmut Kohl · Andreas Papandreou · Felipe González · François Mitterrand · Charles Haughey · Giulio Andreotti · Jacques Santer · Ruud Lubbers · Poul Schlüter · Aníbal Cavaco Silva · John Major · Poul Nyrup Rasmussen · Jean-Luc Dehaene · Andreas Papandreou · Helmut Kohl · Jacques Chirac · Felipe González · Lamberto Dini · Romano Prodi · John Bruton · Wim Kok · Jean-Claude Juncker · Tony Blair · Viktor Klima · Gerhard Schröder · Paavo Lipponen · António Guterres · Jacques Chirac · Göran Persson · Guy Verhofstadt · José María Aznar López · Anders Fogh Rasmussen · Costas Simitis · Silvio Berlusconi · Bertie Ahern · Jan Peter Balkenende · Jean-Claude Juncker · Tony Blair · Wolfgang Schüssel · Matti Vanhanen · Angela Merkel · José Sócrates · Janez Janša · Nicolas Sarkozy · Mirek Topolánek · Jan Fischer · Fredrik Reinfeldt Permanent President (since 2009) Herman Van Rompuy

György (George) Konrád

György (George) Konrád (born April 2, 1933) is a Hungarian novelist and essayist, known as an advocate of individual freedom.

Life[link]

Konrad was born in Berettyóújfalu, near Debrecen into an affluent Jewish family. He graduated in 1951 from the Madách Secondary School in Budapest, entered the Lenin Institute and eventually studied literature, sociology and psychology at the Eötvös Loránd University. In 1956 he participated in the Hungarian Uprising against the Soviet occupation, but did not kill anybody, although he had a gun. In fact, in light of his later attitude towards 56-veterans his honesty about his alleged democratic values been questioned.

Career from the 1970s[link]

Due to oppositional activities he was warned by the public prosecutor and was later fired from his work. In 1977 he received a DAAD- scholarship ^[1] which enabled him to stay in West Berlin along with Iván Szelényi. After writing The Intellectual on the Road to Class Power with Szelényi,^[2] he hid the manuscript at his brother in law Ernő Sándor.^[3] Konrád was arrested in 10/22 1974. After this incident communist leading party ideologist György Aczél personally asked Konrád not to emigrate. In a letter to Aczél, Konrád made a few terms for his staying.^[4] This letter was also published in the Hungarian daily newspaper Magyar Nemzet and was also used as evidence in the Konrád vs Lovas slander trial, where Konrád sought retribution on the publicist István Lovas who have presented Konráds doubtful past in 2003. During this trial the Supreme Court of Budapest stated:

"Based on the verification procedure and the evidences it can be stated that the accuser after his arrest in October 1974 announced that the wanted manuscripts can be found at his brother-in-law's apartment. He then showed up on his apartment together with the representatives of the authority and the accuser asked Ernő Sándor to give the writings to the police. It can be assumed that the name of the person hiding the wanted manuscripts was given up by Konrád. This behavior is called in the everyday life denounce. This is further supported by the accusers own words given in an interview in 168 óra (Hungarian newspaper), where he said: "I’ve done a moral mistake".

During his dissident years he stayed a lot in Western Europe and in USA (among others in New York City, San Francisco and Paris). In 1987 and 1988 he taught world literature in Colorado Collage in Colorado Springs. His oppositional status was criticized several times. None of Konráds books were banned and he could travel to west more often than non political Hungarians. László Kolozsvári Papp had these memories in 1998 in the newspaper “Kortárs” about the dissident years of Konrád and his friends:

“…these boys in the 80s were great oppositionals in that sense, that with a passport issued by comrade Aczél they could rest in West Berlin, USA and Switzerland from the agony of this oppositional struggle; the greatest Hungarian writer – and somewhat informant – György Konrád, the shaper of German culture in the new age - the right man in the right place – after some opposition with his aczél-passport re-appeared in the West, and his first steps led him to Radio Free Europe, and we listened with our little pounding hearts, what we were, what we should be, and few of us thought about it – among them I – what a great guy this Konrád is, when he undertakes everything that is needed to be an oppositional here at home, so he with his “aczélic” passport just step out into the worldly plains, and there tell it to the aczélic system! He is a Hero!, I said to myself, and I just kept on sitting in my nook like the Hungarian writer that is not the greatest.”

In 1988 he was the founder member of the Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ), his name was on the ballots in the following elections of 1990. In July 2009 after Attila Retkes was elected for president of SZDSZ he left the party with several founding members.^[5]

In 1990 he was elected president of International PEN serving until 1993, and in 1997 he was the first non-German to become president of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin.^[6]

He has published a number of essays on politics, literature and sociology, as well as fiction. One of Konrád's most significant novels is The Case Worker, a bleak portrait of human suffering in modern urban industrial society, written from the perspective of a social services functionary. A Feast in the Garden and The Stone Dial are the first two parts of a semi autobiographical fictional trilogy.

In 1985 he received the Prix européen de l'essai Charles Veillon for Antipolitik. Mitteleuropäische Meditationen.

In 2001 he received the Charlemagne Award of the city of Aachen.^[7]

In 2003 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Novi Sad.^[8]

In 2007 Konrád won the National Jewish Book Award in the Biography, Autobiography & Memoir category, for A Guest in my Own Country: A Hungarian Life.^[9]

He was a founder of the Hungarian liberal party the SZDSZ^[10] but left the party in 2009.^[11] He was a friend to the Polish intellectualist - writer Stanisław Lem and politician Władysław Bartoszewski. http://mno.hu/migr_1834/konrad-gyorgy-onsajnalata-a-radioban-423827

Partial list of works[link]

Fiction[link]

• The Case Worker
• The City Builder
• The Loser
• A Feast in the Garden
• The Stone Dial

Non-fiction[link]

• The Intellectual on the Road to Class Power (1978), with Iván Szelényi
• Antipolitics
• The Melancholy of Rebirth (1995)
• The Invisible Voice: Meditations on Jewish Themes
• A Guest in My Own Country: A Hungarian Life (2003)

Articles[link]

• “The Intelligentsia and Social Structure”. Telos^[12] 38 (Winter 1978-79). New York: Telos Press.

References[link]

1. ^ DAAD - wandel durch austausch - change by exchange
2. ^ http://www.yale.edu/sociology/faculty/pages/szelenyi/
3. ^ http://mno.hu/migr_1834/konrad-gyorgy-onsajnalata-a-radioban-423827
4. ^ http://mno.hu/migr_1834/konrad-gyorgy-onsajnalata-a-radioban-423827
5. ^ http://index.hu/belfold/hirek/2009/07/13/konrad_gyorgy_kilepett_az_szdsz-bol/
6. ^ DAAD - wandel durch austausch - change by exchange
7. ^ Charlemagne Prize 2001
8. ^ UNS.ac.rs
9. ^ Jewishbookcouncil.org
10. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/20/magazine/politics-at-the-club-tomaj.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
11. ^ http://www.politics.hu/20090714/famous-liberals-desert-szdsz-as-partys-woes-mount/
12. ^ Telospress.com

External links[link]

• Homepage
• "Chance Wanderings," an essay by Konrad on the 'revolutions' of 1989
• A biographical essay, written in English

Manfred Krug, 1971

Manfred Krug (born February 8, 1937 in Duisburg) is a German actor and singer.

Life and work[link]

After moving to East Germany at the age of 13, Manfred Krug worked at a steel plant before beginning his acting career on the stage and, ultimately, in film. By the end of the 1950s he had several film roles, and in 1960 he appeared in Frank Beyer's successful war movie Fünf Patronenhülsen (Five Cartridges). Many more film roles followed, with Krug often cast as a socialist hero. Krug also achieved notability as a popular jazz singer, often in collaboration with composer Guenther Fischer.

In 1976 the East German government (GDR) forbade Krug to work as an actor and singer because he participated in protests against the expulsion and stripping of GDR citizenship of Wolf Biermann. On April 20, 1977 he requested to leave the GDR and as soon as he got the approval he left the GDR and moved to Schöneberg in West Berlin.

After moving back to West Germany he very soon got new roles as an actor but very rarely sung in public for a long time. In 1978 Krug appeared as one of the male leads of the action-drama television series Auf Achse, and would continue to appear on the series until 1995, one year before the show ended its long run. Krug's various television roles even included a two-year stint on the children's program Sesamstraße, the German version of the American children's program Sesame Street. In the 1980s and 1990s, he also starred as Hauptkommissar Paul Stoever in the Tatort series of TV crime movies, which would eventually run for forty installments in total.

Awards[link]

• 1962 Heinrich-Greif-Preis First Class for Auf der Sonnenseite, ensemble award

• 1963 Erich-Weinert-Medaille for Beschreibung eines Sommers with Christel Bodenstein

• 1965 Erich-Weinert-Medaille for Die Abenteuer des Werner Holt, ensemble award

• 1968 National Prize of East Germany First Class for Wege übers Land, ensemble award

• 1971 National Prize of East Germany Second Class

• 1972 "Ehrende Anerkennung" (Special Award) at Workers' Filmfestival of Czechoslovakia for Die gestohlene Schlacht

• 1973 Verdienstmedaille der DDR

• 1979 Goldene Europa of Europawelle Saar

• 1984 Goldener Bambi

• 1990 Bayerischer Fernsehpreis for TV series Liebling Kreuzberg (SFB/NDR/WDR), together with Jurek Becker and Werner Masten

• 1990 Bavarian Film Awards, Best Actor [1]

• 2006 Platin Romy lifetime award

Filmography (Selection)[link]

Television[link]

• 1968: Wege übers Land
• 1973: Stülpner-Legende
• 1982: Die Fischer von Moorhövd
• Auf Achse
• Liebling Kreuzberg
• Tatort
• Wir sind auch nur ein Volk
• Sesamstraße
• Detektivbüro Roth

Discography[link]

• 1962: Auf der Sonnenseite
• 1964: Jazz und Lyrik
• 1965: Manfred Krug und die Modern Jazz Big Band
• 1966: Lyrik - Jazz - Prosa (with Eberhard Esche, Gerd E. Schäfer, Annekathrin Bürger and others, in different editions and under different names, some of them in censored versions without Manfred Krug)
• 1969: Onkel Toms Hütte (Hörbuch, Krug singing to spirituals)
• 1970: Fredmanns Episteln an diese und jene aber hauptsächlich an Ulla Winblad (after Carl Michael Bellman)
• 1971: Das war nur ein Moment
• 1973: Ein Hauch von Frühling
• 1974: Greens
• 1976: Du bist heute wie neu
• 1977: Abgehauen
• 1979: Da bist Du ja
• 1997: Anthologie
• 2000: Tatort – die Songs (with Charles Brauer)
• 2000: Evergreens - Das Beste von Manfred Krug - 1962–1977
• 2000: Deutsche Schlager
• 2000: Schlafstörung
• 2001: Manfred Krug Live mit Fanny (with Fanny Krug)
• 2002: Leben bis Männer (Audiobook; from Thomas Brussig)
• 2002: Der Weihnachtskrug
• 2003: Sweet Nothings (with Decebal Badila and Fanny Krug)
• 2005: Geschichten Vom Herrn K. (Audiobook; from Bertolt Brecht)
• 2005: Lust des Beginnens (Audiobook; from Bertolt Brecht)
• 2005: Neuigkeiten an Manfred Krug und Otti (Audiobook; from Jurek Becker)