Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1990-0222-016, Leipzig, SPD-Parteitag, Ibrahim Böhme

Ibrahim Böhme (18 November 1944 in

Bad Dürrenberg Bad Dürrenberg is a spa town in the Saalekreis district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the river Saale, approx. 8 km southeast of Merseburg. It is known for its graduation tower, the largest one in Germany. Geography The t ...

Province of Saxony The Province of Saxony (german: link=no, Provinz Sachsen), also known as Prussian Saxony () was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and later the Free State of Prussia from 1816 until 1944. Its capital was Magdeburg. It was formed by the merge ...

– 22 November 1999) was an

East German East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

politician and

Stasi The Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the (),An abbreviation of . was the Intelligence agency, state security service of the East Germany from 1950 to 1990. The Stasi's function was similar to the KGB, serving as a means of maint ...

informer. Before becoming involved in politics, Böhme had worked numerous different jobs, including as a cook, waiter, bricklayer, teacher, and historian. In the late 1980s he is also known to have been a

human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...

advocate associated with the

Initiative for Peace and Human Rights The Initiative for Peace and Human Rights (german: Initiative für Frieden und Menschenrechte, IFM) was the oldest opposition group in East Germany. It was founded on 24 January 1986 and was independent of the churches and state. On 7 February 199 ...

. He was a cofounder of the

Social Democratic Party in the GDR The Social Democratic Party in the GDR (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei in der DDR) was a reconstituted Social Democratic Party existing during the final phase of East Germany. Slightly less than a year after its creation it merged with its Wes ...

in October 1989, and was elected its first full-time chairman at the party's first regular congress in January 1990. He led the party to second place in East Germany's first and only free election, on 18 March 1990, and was slated to be a senior minister in the

grand coalition A grand coalition is an arrangement in a multi-party parliamentary system in which the two largest political parties of opposing political ideologies unite in a coalition government. The term is most commonly used in countries where there are t ...

led by

Lothar de Maizière Lothar de Maizière (; born 2 March 1940) is a German Christian Democratic politician. In 1990, he served as the only premier of the German Democratic Republic to be democratically elected freely and fairly by the people. He was also the last ...

. While coalition talks were underway, the weekly magazine ''

Der Spiegel ''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

'' reported on 24 March 1990 that Böhme had been an informer for the

since 1969. He had infiltrated opposition circles in East Berlin in 1985. Although Böhme denied this, he was forced to resign on 1 April. He was expelled from the Social Democratic Party in 1992 for "serious party-damaging behavior". Böhme was one of many East German citizens to have been discovered to be Stasi informants during the Communist era, sometimes ruining personal relationships as well as careers. In 1992 a book about Böhme titled ''Comrade Judas: The Two Lives of Ibrahim Böhme'', written by , was published in Germany. Ibrahim Böhme died of heart complications in Berlin on 22 November 1999 at the age of 55. He denied the accusations of him being a

informer up to his death.

Notes

References

Biography: Ibrahim Bohme, 1944-1999

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bohme, Ibrahim 1944 births 1999 deaths People from Saalekreis People from the Province of Saxony Socialist Unity Party of Germany politicians Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians Members of the 10th Volkskammer People of the Stasi Social Democratic Party in the GDR politicians