Gerhart Baum

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Gerhart Baum at a press conference in Berlin in 2020

(Bild: APA/AFP/John MACDOUGALL)

He was the kind of politician who was not primarily driven by his own advancement, but by unwavering convictions. Now the former German Minister of the Interior and social liberal FDP politician Gerhart Baum has died at the age of 92.

At the end of his life, the staunch democrat and human rights advocate had to admit that Western values were under pressure. "Democracies around the world are weakening," he admitted. However, he did not see this as a reason for resignation, but as an incentive to keep fighting. As far as Germany was concerned, he rejected pessimism: "We still have a stable democracy and not a divided society. Let's not tell ourselves that. We have threats to freedom, especially from right-wing extremism, and I take that very seriously. But we still have a very strong, successful democracy."

Alongside his friend Burkhard Hirsch, who died in March 2020, Baum was part of the last small group of social-liberal FDP members who joined forces with Hildegard Hamm-Brücher and then Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger in the Freiburg Circle. This effectively meant left-liberal opposition within their own party.

Gerhart Baum

(Bild: APA/AFP/INA FASSBENDER)

Interior Minister under Helmut Schmidt
From 1978 onwards, Baum was German Interior Minister under SPD Chancellor Helmut Schmidt for four years - during the period of RAF terror. After the FDP turned from the SPD to the CDU/CSU in 1982, the social-liberal coalition was at an end. Many - especially young - FDP members left the party at the time. Baum stayed on and was FDP Vice-Chairman from 1982 to 1991.

After leaving the Bundestag, he returned to work as a lawyer. Until the very end, he - together with Hirsch and Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, among others - led successful constitutional complaints against state surveillance: against the "Big Eavesdropping Attack", data retention or the Red-Green Aviation Security Act on the shooting down of hijacked passenger planes.

Baum, born on October 28, 1932, came from Dresden's educated middle class. His father and grandfather were also lawyers. His mother, a Russian, fled with her children to Lake Tegernsee after the bombing of Dresden in February 1945. The family moved to Cologne in 1950.

Hard work - right to the end
Baum worked every day until almost the end. At the age of 89, he mediated a long-sought settlement between the bereaved families of the Israeli victims of the 1972 Munich Olympic bombing and the German government. He also represented Russian forced laborers and relatives and victims of an air show accident at the US military airfield in Ramstein. Sitting on a park bench or walking the dog - that was nothing for him, he admitted to the German Press Agency shortly before his 90th birthday.

When you spoke to him, he always gave the impression of being in a hurry. "Let's get started!" he would say. There was no room for small talk, it was wasted time.