Rudolf Bahmann

Rudolf Bahmann (26 February 1929 – 19 September 1977) was an East German politician. Between 1973 and 1977 he served as chairman of the council in the Gera administrative district. Life Bahmann was born in Plauen, an industrial town in the south-west of Saxony that had boomed in the nineteenth century. The decline of the German textiles sector after the First World War created particular economic and social hardship in the town during the 1920s, however. Bahmann's father was a farmer: his mother was employed as a sales assistant. Rudolf Bahmann attended school locally and then undertook an apprenticeship in agriculture on his parents' 13 hectare (32 acre) farm. Following the Second World War, Plauen become part of the Soviet occupation zone. Communist Party membership was no longer illegal and Bahmann, now aged 16, joined the party. Also in 1945, he was a founder member of the Anti-Fascist Youth group in Gera, a short distance to the north of Plauen. As the Communist Party merged into the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in 1946, Bahmann became a SED member. He also, at this time, enrolled at the Agricultural College in Berga. Between 1948 and 1950 Bahmann was employed by the regional party leadership in Thuringia as an instructor. He also attended the Agriculture Academy in Paretz and undertook a traineeship at the regional party academy in Bad Blankenburg.