Gerd Koenen

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Gerd Koenen (born 9 December 1944) is a German historian and former communist politician. Born in Marburg, Koenen grew up in Bochum and Gelsenkirchen and studied Romance languages, history and politics in Tübingen. There, he joined the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (Socialist German Student Association) in the wake of the shooting of Benno Ohnesorg by the police. In 1968 he moved to Frankfurt, where in 1972, he completed the state exam in history and politics. In 1973, he joined the newly founded Communist League of West Germany (KBW). Under the influence of his party he gave up his 1974 doctoral dissertation, preferring instead to devote himself to the "revolutionary factory work" and from 1976 to edit the Communist People's Daily of KBW. As of 1982, Koenen distanced himself from KBW and was disillusioned with his study of the Polish antisoviet movement Solidarity. A number of Koenen's publications are devoted to the history of communism and its perception in Germany, a subject on which he finally received his doctorate in Tübingen in 2003. From 1988 to 1990, he was editor of the magazine Pflasterstrand ("Paved Beach") along with Daniel Cohn-Bendit). Koenen's 2001 book Das rote Jahrzehnt ("The Red Decade") became well-known and due to the discussion of the radical leftist past of foreign minister Joschka Fischer, and the importance of the '68 movement in the history of the Federal Republic.