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Oskar Lafontaine
Oskar Lafontaine 1943-, German politician. He rose through the Social Democrat Party (SPD) and electoral ranks in the Saar, becoming SPD regional chairman in 1977 and premier of the Saar in 1985. A leader of his party's "peace faction" in the early 1980s, he denounced Chancellor Helmut Schmidt...
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Helmut Schmidt
Helmut Schmidt , 1918-, German political leader, chancellor of West Germany (1974-82). After serving in World War II, he entered politics and joined the Social Democratic party. He was elected to the Bundestag in 1953. Schmidt was Social Democrat leader in the Bundestag (1967-69) and in 1968 became ...
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Hans Dietrich Genscher
Hans Dietrich Genscher , 1927-, German politician; foreign minister (1974-92). A Liberal party member in East Germany, he left the East in 1952, joining the Free Democrats (FDP) in West Germany. Elected to the Bundestag (1965), he became the party's chairman (1974), and led it into a coalition gover...
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Helmut Kohl
Helmut Kohl , 1930-, German politician, chancellor of West Germany (1982-1990) and reunified Germany (1990-98). He was named chairman of the Rhine-Palatinate Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in 1966 and was elected state premier (1969-76). He then became (1973-98) chairman of the national CDU, leadi...
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Franz Josef Strauss
Franz Josef Strauss , 1915-88, West German political figure, leader of the Christian Social Union. He became prominent in the Bavarian Christian Social Union (the Bavarian wing of the Christian Democratic Union) after World War II. Elected to the Bundestag in 1949, he became (1956) minister of defen...
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Lothar De Maizière
Lothar De Maizière , 1940-, the first and last freely elected prime minister of the (East) German Democratic Republic. He joined the puppet Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in 1957 and the federal Synod of Protestant Churches, becoming its vice president in 1985. He was minister of religious ...
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Socialist parties
Socialist parties in European history, political organizations formed in European countries to achieve the goals of socialism .
General History
In the late 19th cent. the gradual enfranchisement of the working classes gave impetus to socialism and the formation of Socialist political par...
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Germany
Germany , Ger. Deutschland, officially Federal Republic of Germany, republic (2005 est. pop. 82,431,000), 137,699 sq mi (356,733 sq km). Located in the center of Europe, it borders the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France on the west; Switzerland and Austria on the south; the Czech Republi...
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Helmut Richard Niebuhr
Helmut Richard Niebuhr 1894-1962, American theologian, b. Wright City, Mo., grad. Elmhurst College (Ill.), 1912, and Eden Theological Seminary, 1915, M.A. Washington Univ., 1917, B.D. Yale Divinity School, 1923, Ph.D. Yale, 1924. He was the younger brother of Reinhold Niebuhr . He was ordained (19...
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The Golden Legend
The Golden Legend collection of saints' lives written in the 13th cent. by Jacobus da Varagine . Originally entitled Legenda sanctorum [readings in the lives of the saints], it soon came to be called Legenda aurea [the golden legend] because of its popularity, which continued until the Reforma...
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