Ernst Mecklenburg


Ernst Mecklenburg is a former East German politician who served as Chairman of the Democratic Farmers' Party of Germany.

Biography

Mecklenburg was born in East Prussia in 1927 to a farming family. He attended school to be trained as a teacher in Memel during World War II and was recruited into the Wehrmacht shortly before the war's end in January 1945. After the war, Mecklenburg was active in both agriculture and mining in the newly-formed German Democratic Republic. In 1950 he joined the Democratic Farmers' Party of Germany and the Free German Youth.
His first political office was that of Mayor of the town of Rehna from 1950 to 1952. In 1954 he became district secretary of the DFD in Rostock and in 1963 was made a member of the executive committee of the party. He was elected to the Volkskammer as a member of the DFD in 1971. In 1982 Mecklenburg succeeded Ernst Goldenbaum as Chairman of the party and served in this capacity until his own retirement from politics due to health reasons.