Background
Frank Terpe was born a couple of weeks before the United States Stock Market famously collapsed, in a small country town some 25 km (15 miles) down river of Meißen in central Germany. His father was a crane operator.
mathematician politician university professor
Frank Terpe was born a couple of weeks before the United States Stock Market famously collapsed, in a small country town some 25 km (15 miles) down river of Meißen in central Germany. His father was a crane operator.
He attended junior school locally in Nünchritz between 1936 and 1940 and the Adolf Hitler Middle School from 1942 to 1945. He successfully completed his schooling at the upper school in Riesa, a short distance down the river and on the other side if lieutenant
He was a professor at Greifswald University. In 1990 he served as Minister for Research and Technology in East Germany"s only democratically elected government. Early years
When Terpe was slightly more than three years old, Germany became a one party state.
Academic career
By 1948 one one-party state had been replaced, for those living in the Soviet occupation zone of what had previously been Germany, with another.
The area was being systematically converted into the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). In 1948 Terpe moved on to study Mathematics and Physics at Greifswald.
He then got a position as an assistant, later promoted to senior assistant, at the town"s Ernst Moritz Arndt University (EMAU). In 1969 he was appointed Professor for Analysis.
Between 1971 and 1980 Frank Terpe was in charge of the Mathematics Department at the EMAU. He remained a professor at Greifswald till his retirement in 1993.
In February 1990 he was voted on to the party executive. In East Germany"s only free election, which took place on 18 March 1990, Terpe was elected to membership of the country"s National Assembly (Volkskammer), where he became the deputy Chairman of the Social Democratic Party group. On 12 April 1990 he was appointed to the government being formed by Lothar de Maizière as Minister for Research and Technology in succession to Peter-Klaus Budig.
He resigned from his ministerial position on 20 August 1990 following the controversial resignation from the government of its Finance Minister, Walter Romberg which led to the withdrawal of the Social Democratic Party from the governing coalition.
Frank Terpe"s son, (Frank) Harald Terpe, is also a politician.
Political career
In November 1989, a few weeks after his sixtieth birthday, Terpe joined the newly (re)formed Social Democratic Party (party) (which in parallel with German reunification would merge with its western equivalent, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (party), in September 1990).
In the 2005 election Harald Terpe was elected to the Bundestag as a member of the Green Party.