Honoring Georg Gradnauer
On November 18, 2022, Dr. Georg Gradnauer, the founder of the Free State of Saxony and the first elected Minister President in 1919, was given a special honor: To rescue him from oblivion, a representative hall in the State Chancellery was named after him. In doing so, the Free State of Saxony acknowledged its democratic roots. Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer and Minister of State Martin Dulig paid tribute to the politician who dared to make a new democratic start in difficult times and who was repeatedly exposed to anti-Semitic hostility because of his Jewish origins and only narrowly escaped the Holocaust in 1945. In his speech "Free State Founder and Teacher of Democracy", HAIT staff member Prof. Dr. Mike Schmeitzner traced the stations in the life of a socially committed democrat who served as a ministerial representative in 1919/20 and as Reich Minister of the Interior in 1921. After the speeches, a picture of the politician was unveiled and a small exhibition was opened, which was created in cooperation with the Dresden State Archives.
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© (c) M. Schmeitzner