About Gerhart Baum
Gerhart Rudolf Baum, born in Dresden in 1932, fled with his mother to Tegernsee, and has lived in Cologne since 1950. He joined the FDP at a young age and sat on the party's national executive committee from 1966 to 1998. From 1978 to 1982, he served as Federal Minister of the Interior, where he put the brakes on the overzealousness of law enforcement authorities – at the same time, he was responsible for environmental policy. He was a member of the Bundestag from 1972 to 1994 and has been one of the most prominent defenders of the rule of law for decades (including at the UN, with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch).
He is a lawyer by training and returned to practice in 1994, and led the investigations into data scandals at Telekom and Deutsche Bahn, among others. Mr Baum was awarded the Marion Dönhoff Prize in 2021 for his commitment to international understanding and reconciliation.
His book “Freiheit” also appeared in 2021. Gerhart Baum lives and works in Cologne.
