Hermann Kreutzer, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Hermann Kreutzer

German opinion journalist and politician

Date of Birth: 03-May-1924

Place of Birth: Saalfeld, Thuringia, Germany

Date of Death: 28-Mar-2007

Profession: politician, opinion journalist

Nationality: Germany

Zodiac Sign: Taurus

Hermann Kreutzer (3 May 1924 - 3 March 2007) was a German political activist (SPD).
As a teenager he was caught distributing anti-government leaflets, and spent the final months of the National Socialist period serving the first part of a ten year prison sentence.
Towards the end of 1945 he entered mainstream politics in his home region, which was by now being administered as part of the Soviet occupation zone.
He campaigned against the contentious party merger between the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party.
A further lengthy period in government detention followed.
In 1956, following high level government negotiations, he was released and unceremoniously transferred from East to West Berlin.After this he came to the notice of commentators as one of a handful of West German back-room negotiators involved in the "Häftlingsfreikauf" programme, which involved East German political prisoners being released to West Germany in return for large amounts of cash.
When the programme began, in 1962, it was a jealously guarded government secret on both sides of the border between the Germanys.
However, as more and more former East German political prisoners turned up in West Germany during the 1960s and 1970s, the realities of "Häftlingsfreikauf" became, little by little, a matter of public knowledge.
By 1980, some of the complexities of Hermann Kreutzer's shadowy involvement in it were being openly discussed in the West German press.