Gerald Goetting (born 9 June 1923) was an East German Christian Democratic (CDU) politician.

Goetting was born in , near the cities of Leipzig and Halle in eastern Germany. During the Second World War he worked in the Reichsarbeitsdienst, an auxiliary support and supply organization, and served as a Wehrmacht soldier. He was briefly held as a prisoner of war by US forces in 1945.

Following the conclusion of the war, Goetting joined the East German Christian Democratic Union in 1946. He then spent two years at the , where he studied Germanism, history and philology.

In 1949, Goetting became General Secretary of the CDU and, after the establishment in the of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), began his career as a member of the People's Chamber (Volkskammer), the East German legislative body, in which he served for the next forty years. During that time Goetting came to hold a number of influential positions within the East German state: from 1949 to 1963, he served as the Chairman of the CDU faction in the People's Chamber; from 1958 to 1963 as Deputy Prime Minister of the GDR; and from 1963 to November 1989 Goetting served as Deputy Chairman of the Council of State, a position equivalent in rank to the vice-presidency of the GDR. Goetting also served as Chairman of the People's Chamber from 1969 to 1976 and as its Vice-Chairman from 1969 to 1989. Finally, Goetting was elected Chairman of the CDU at its 1966 party congress. As chairman, he worked closely with the other parties that formed the National Front and with the Communist government, and during his party leadership published brochures exploring the relationship between Christianity and Socialism.

Goetting held a number of other positions in East German society. From 1961 to 1969 Goetting was Vice-President of the German-African Society, and from 1963 he was a member of the Albert Schweitzer Committee. He visited with Schweitzer twice, which meetings he recorded and publicized in his book “Begegnungen mit Albert Schweitzer“. In 1976 Goetting was elected Chairman of the People's Friendship League of the GDR.

On 2 November, 1989, just days before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Goetting resigned as Chairman of the CDU. He then resigned his position as a member of the Council of State five days later on November 7th. He was arrested one month later, but released in February 1990. Goetting was later charged with embezzlement of party funds and was expelled from the CDU in February 1991.

See also

• Christian Democratic Union of Germany
• Germany During the Cold War

Bibliography

• Goetting, Gerald, Der Christ zagt ja zum Sozialismus (1960)
• Goetting, Gerald, Begegnung mit Albert Schweitzer (1961)
• Goetting, Gerald, Christen und Marxisten in gemeinsamer Verantwortung (1974)
• Goetting, Gerald, Christliche Demokraten auf dem Weg in die 90e Jahre (1988)
• Goetting, Gerald, Prediger für eine gerechte Welt (1989)
• Götting,Gerald, Nowak,Kurt "Paul Gerhard Braune. Ein Christ der Tat" 1988 ISBN 3-92246-357-6
• Childs, David, The GDR: Moscow's German Ally. London: George Allen & Unwin (1983)