35 Facts About Karl-Heinz Gerstner

Karl-Heinz Gerstner trained as a lawyer and then worked during the war for the German diplomatic service in Paris.

Karl-Heinz Gerstner was then able to reinvent himself as an East German journalist.

Karl-Heinz Gerstner was born in the Charlottenburg quarter of Berlin.

Karl-Heinz Gerstner attended the Kaiser-Friedrich Gymnasium in Berlin between 1917 and 1931.

Karl-Heinz Gerstner's prize was six months abroad during 1928, as a pupil at the Tabor Academy, a prestigious private school in Massachusetts.

Between 1931 and 1935 Karl-Heinz Gerstner studied Jurisprudence at Berlin's Frederick-William University.

Nevertheless, in his autobiography published in 1999 Karl-Heinz Gerstner evidently identified an inconsistency which could not go unremarked.

Karl-Heinz Gerstner received his doctorate of laws from the University of Erlangen in 1937.

Karl-Heinz Gerstner passed his Level 1 national law exams in 1935 and embarked on the next stage of the legal traineeship, starting with six months at the district court in Rheinsberg.

In February 1940 Karl-Heinz Gerstner finally completed his legal training, apparently passing the necessary exams.

However, in the end Karl-Heinz Gerstner was spared from military service as a result of injuries caused by childhood polio.

Shortly after he joined the department Karl-Heinz Gerstner was asked by his head of department, Gerhard Ruhle, if he could think of anyone with sufficient natural authority to defend the ministry in any possible future conflict with Goebbels.

Karl-Heinz Gerstner thought of, and recommended, his old law tutor, Kurt Georg Kiesinger.

The military phase of the operation was completed much more rapidly than French military planners had expected, and in July 1940 Karl-Heinz Gerstner was sent back to Paris as an "Academic support assistant in the Economy Department" at the German embassy in Paris.

On 2 May 1945, a few days before the formal end of the war, the local Soviet commander appointed Karl-Heinz Gerstner to serve as "second deputy mayor" in Berlin-Wilmersdorf.

Karl-Heinz Gerstner was now taken to in the underground NKVD prisoner of war holding centre in what had previously been the cellar for keeping the bodies of dead animals cool at the former Veterinary Medicine Institute in central Berlin.

The statements demonstrated that Karl-Heinz Gerstner had never been a convinced Nazi, and they included several sworn statements attesting ways in which he had helped Resistance members during the war.

The Soviets were convinced, and Karl-Heinz Gerstner was released from detention on 21 January 1946.

Karl-Heinz Gerstner later claimed that while he was held in Soviet detention he had succeeded in communicating with his wife using Kassiber code.

Karl-Heinz Gerstner submitted an application to join the newly reinstated German Communist Party.

Wilmersdorf, where Karl-Heinz Gerstner continued to live after the Soviets released him, was in the British sector.

In Wilmersdorf Karl-Heinz Gerstner built up another political discussion circle: participants included Rainer Hildebrandt, Gunter Neumann and Fritz Teppich.

In December 1948 Karl-Heinz Gerstner embarked on a career as an economic journalist, his contributions appearing in the Berliner Zeitung.

Karl-Heinz Gerstner continued to give these radio talks till 1988, concluding each week with the words "sachlich, kritisch und optimistisch wie immer", a motto the first part of which he would later re-activate as the title for his 1999 autobiography.

Karl-Heinz Gerstner became a favourite with viewers, on several occasions topping popularity polls for television personalities.

Karl-Heinz Gerstner could be - and sometimes was - described as something of an institution in the German Democratic Republic.

Karl-Heinz Gerstner's autobiography appeared ten years later, with the title "Sachlich, kritisch und optimistisch".

Karl-Heinz Gerstner died at Kleinmachnow a couple of weeks after his ninety-third birthday.

Karl-Heinz Gerstner was the founder of the popular fashion magazine Sibylle.

Researches in the Stasi records showed that Karl-Heinz Gerstner had been registered with the ministry as an informer since 1975.

Karl-Heinz Gerstner had received a visit from Gerstner in April 1977.

The report of Karl-Heinz Gerstner's visit to Krug is documented in the Stasi records.

Karl-Heinz Gerstner writes in his autobiography that he was asked by the Politburo member Hermann Axen to involve himself socially with the western diplomats "in support of a peaceful future", and to provide reports for the Stasi on matters which might be relevant to government foreign policy.

Karl-Heinz Gerstner was introduced to his new handler and given his new instructions.

Karl-Heinz Gerstner was to establish contact with diplomats, especially from those states which were "of significance because of their political activities against the German Democratic Republic".