Gert Bastian
Gert Bastian (26 March 1923 – c. 1 October 1992) was a German military officer and politician with the German Green Party.
Gert Bastian

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- Name
- Gert Bastian
- Born
- 26 March 1923
- Died
- October 1992 (aged 69)
- Birthplace
- Munich, Weimar Republic
- Place of death
- Bonn, Germany
- Nationality
- Germany
- Occupation
- politician · military personnel · peace activist · writer · soldier
- Education
- Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr
- Honours
- Carl von Ossietzky Medal
- Languages
- German
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Documentary summary
Gert Bastian (26 March 1923 – c. 1 October 1992) was a German military officer and politician with the German Green Party.
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Note VALÉORINE
Gert Bastian (1923–1992) was a German military personnel, peace activist and politician, among other activities. Born in Munich, the military personnel died in Bonn.
Gert Bastian studied at Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr. The military personnel held the position of member of the German Bundestag and worked in Bonn.
Languages used include German. Gert Bastian received Carl von Ossietzky Medal.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 26 September 2026
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wikidata · Q69251 · wikipedia · Gert Bastian
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Gert Bastian • Office — Member of the Bundestag • Term Start — 29 March 1983 • Term End — 18 February 1987 • Born — 26 March 1923 • Died — October 1992 (aged 69) • Birthplace — Munich, Weimar Republic • Place of death — Bonn, Germany • Party — Christian Social Union (1950s) German Green Party (1983–1987)
Biography
Biography
Born in Munich, Bastian volunteered for the Wehrmacht in 1941, at the age of nineteen. In World War II he served on the Eastern Front, being wounded by a bullet in the right arm and in the head by a grenade fragment. He was also hit by American machine gun fire in France. After the war, he started a business that failed and then rejoined the military. From 1956 to 1980 Bastian served in the Bundeswehr—joining as a first lieutenant, promoted in 1962 to the position of general staff officer/officer in the army command staff, and in 1974 promoted to the rank of Brigadier General, chief of staff in the army office—ending his service as a divisional commander with the rank of Major General. During this period Bastian's politics changed radically. In the 1950s he had been a member of the Christian Social Union in his native Bavaria. Yet Bastian was also an opponent of the planned stationing of medium-range missiles with nuclear warheads in Europe and joined the peace movement. In 1980, he outlined those views in a memorandum to the West German government, asking to retire in the face of what he considered unacceptable military policies; his request was rejected and he resigned. In 1981 he was the joint founder of a group called "Generals for Peace". In the 26 April 1994 edition of The Independent newspaper, Günter Bohnsack, who spent 26 years in the Active Measures Department of the Stasi, claimed that "Generals for Peace was conceived, organised and financed by the Stasi... This created a real power that was in line with Moscow's ideas... and we always controlled this through our intelligence services in Moscow and East Berlin." In the 1980s, Bastian was, together with his partner Petra Kelly, one of the most important West German supporters of the opposition in the German Democratic Republic.
Death and killing of Petra Kelly
Death and killing of Petra Kelly
On 19 October 1992, the decomposing bodies of Bastian and Kelly were discovered in the bedroom of their house in Bonn by police officials after they received a call from both Bastian's wife and Kelly's grandmother who reported that they had not heard from either Bastian or Kelly for a few weeks. The police asserted that Kelly was shot dead while sleeping by Bastian, who then died of suicide. Police estimated the deaths had most likely occurred on 1 October, but the exact time of death could not be pinpointed due to the delay in finding the bodies and their resultant state of decomposition. Neither Bastian nor Kelly left any written message or other evidence useful to explain the reason of the homicide-suicide. Theories have been put forward that Bastian was afraid of an imminent opening of Stasi files revealing his role as an agent of the East German secret police, but no such evidence has emerged. Bastian was buried in the Nordfriedhof in Schwabing, Munich.

Beschreibung: Gerd Bastian 1986 im Bundestag *Quelle: selbst fotografiert
User Urning on de.wikipedia · von Herbert Rusche

Collectie / Archief: Fotocollectie Anefo Reportage / Serie: Voormalige NAVO-generaals, bijeen in Nieuwspoort, bieden alle ministers van Buitenlandse Zaken en Defensie in de NAVO-landen een memorandum aan in verband met de decemberzitting van de NAVO Beschrijving: Van links naar rechts generaal Von Meyenfeldt, generaal Sanguinetti, generaal Pasti, generaal Koumanakos en Gert Bastian Datum: 25 n
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Munich.
Birth place
Bonn.
Death place
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The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Gert Bastian, revision 1363112494 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Stichtag – WDR. Wdr.de. 26 March 2013.
- 2.Chronik-Biographie: Gert Bastian. Chronikderwende.de. 7 October 1989.
- 3.Gert Bastian. Chronik der Wende.
- 4.Quint, Peter E. Civil Disobedience and the German Courts: The Pershing Missile Protests in Comparative Perspective. Routledge. 175. 2008. 978-0-415-44285-5.
- 5.Graham, Bradley. W. German General Punished for Outspokenness. The Washington Post. 27 January 1980.
- 6.Banse, Dirk. Der Stasi-Maulwurf von Bonn. Die Welt. 28 April 2004.
- 7.Brigadier Michael Harbottle. julianlewis.net. 28 May 1997.
- 8.Petra Kelly und die Oppositionellen in der DDR: "Die Unterstützung, die wir brauchten". Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung. 29 September 2022.
- 9.Miller, Marjorie. Postscript – Lover's Secret Past Seen as Key to Peace Activist's Violent End – A new biography of Greens founder Petra Kelly rules out the 'double suicide' theory. Los Angeles Times. 8 November 1994.
- 10.Münchner Stadtgeschichte. stadtgeschichte-muenchen.de. 23 August 2023.
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