Peter Porsch (born 15 October 1944 in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

) is a German academic and politician. From 1990 till 2009 he was a member of the

Parliament of Saxony The Landtag of Saxony (german: Sächsischer Landtag), also known in English as the Saxon State Parliament, is the legislature of the Free State of Saxony, one of Germany's sixteen states. It is responsible for legislation, control of the govern ...

for the far-left party

Die Linke The Left (german: Die Linke; stylised as and in its logo as ), commonly referred to as the Left Party (german: Die Linkspartei, links=no ), is a democratic socialist political party in Germany. The party was founded in 2007 as the result of th ...

. He headed the parliamentary group of his party between 1994 and 2009.

Biography

He was raised in

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

, but settled in the

German Democratic Republic German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

in 1973, taking

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 ...

citizenship in 1979. From 1970 until the 1980s he was an

informant An informant (also called an informer or, as a slang term, a “snitch”) is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law-enforcement world, where informan ...

for the

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 ...

under the code name '' IM Christoph'', as was later established by the Commissioner for the Stasi Archives. In the 1973 he took a job at the "Karl Marx University" (as it was then known) in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

, initially as a research assistant and later as a senior researcher in the Department for

German Studies German studies is the field of humanities that researches, documents and disseminates German language and literature in both its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies often include classes on German culture, German hi ...

Linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

, which he had already studied for his first degree at

Vienna University The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public university, public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the Geogra ...

from 1962 till 1968. He pursued his academic career at Leipzig for more than three decades, obtaining his

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

in 1981 for work on "Text evaluation as a Method for gathering language-communicative norms". and obtaining a professorship in 1988. He was fired from his job at the University of Leipzig in 2004 without any notice period, after his Stasi past was revealed.Stasi-Verdacht: Peter Porsch gefeuert - Deutschland - FOCUS Online
/ref> Porsch became a member of the

SED sed ("stream editor") is a Unix utility that parses and transforms text, using a simple, compact programming language. It was developed from 1973 to 1974 by Lee E. McMahon of Bell Labs, and is available today for most operating systems. sed wa ...

in 1982. From 1991 to 1995 and from 1997 to 2001 he was chairman of the

Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus The Party of Democratic Socialism (german: Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus, PDS) was a democratic socialist political party in Germany active between 1989 and 2007. It was the legal successor to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), wh ...

in Saxony, and was elected to the Parliament of Saxony in 1990, and has headed the PDS/Die Linke faction since 1994. He was vice president of the PDS from 2000 to 2003. On 11 May 2006 the Parliament of Saxony decided with great majority to open a case against Porsch at the Constitutional Court of Saxony in order to revoke his parliamentary seat, according to article 118 of the Saxon Constitution, as a consequence of his Stasi past. The case was denied in November that year for formal reasons, since the time limit to open a case was exceeded.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Porsch, Peter 1944 births Living people The Left (Germany) politicians Members of the Landtag of Saxony People of the Stasi