Gerhard Baumgärtel

Gerhard Baumgärtel (25 November 1931 – 27 July 1997) was a German architect, university lecturer and politician of the East German Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

In the German Democratic Republic, he served as the longtime Lord Mayor of Weimar in the 1980s and as the GDR's penultimate Construction Minister during the Peaceful Revolution.

Early career
After an apprenticeship as a carpenter, Baumgärtel studied interior design at the Erfurt School of Applied Arts and from 1954 to 1960 at the University of Architecture and Civil Engineering Weimar (HAB).

After working as an architect and project manager at VEB Polygraph Leipzig, he was a research assistant at the HAB from 1962 to 1969, senior assistant from 1969 to 1974, and lecturer after an additional study program at the Budapest University of Technology until 1982, then honorary professor.

In 1965, he received his doctorate (Dr.-Ing.) at the HAB Weimar with the thesis "Room design in compact windowless industrial buildings with special consideration of basic work hygiene requirements". In 1969 he habilitated there with the thesis "Investigations on the design of the working environment in industrial buildings - A contribution to technical-scientific design principles and their methodological application in the design process to increase the building-technical use value requirements for industrial buildings".

Bloc party politician
Baumgärtel joined the East German Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a bloc party beholden to the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED), in 1969. Since 1977 he was a member of the party Main Executive Committee, and since 1984 a member of the Presidium of the Main Executive Committee.

In Oktober 1982, he was made Lord Mayor of Weimar, a position traditionally held by a member of the CDU, succeeding Franz Kirchner, who retired. Baumgärtel additionally became member of the Volkskammer in 1986.

Peaceful Revolution
During the Wende, he served as Minister for Construction and Housing in the transitional government of Hans Modrow.

Afterwards, Baumgärtel worked as an architect until retiring in 1995. He passed away in 1997 at the age of 65 in Weimar.