Peter Florin
East German politician and diplomat
title: "Peter Florin" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1921-births", "2014-deaths", "politicians-from-cologne", "people-from-the-rhine-province", "members-of-the-central-committee-of-the-socialist-unity-party-of-germany", "government-ministers-of-east-germany", "members-of-the-state-council-of-east-germany", "members-of-the-1st-volkskammer", "members-of-the-2nd-volkskammer", "members-of-the-3rd-volkskammer", "members-of-the-4th-volkskammer", "members-of-the-5th-volkskammer", "members-of-the-6th-volkskammer", "members-of-the-7th-volkskammer", "members-of-the-8th-volkskammer", "members-of-the-9th-volkskammer", "ambassadors-of-east-germany-to-czechoslovakia", "permanent-representatives-of-east-germany-to-the-united-nations", "presidents-of-the-united-nations-general-assembly", "refugees-from-nazi-germany-in-the-soviet-union", "soviet-military-personnel-of-world-war-ii", "soviet-partisans", "belarusian-partisans", "national-committee-for-a-free-germany-members", "recipients-of-the-patriotic-order-of-merit-(honor-clasp)", "recipients-of-the-banner-of-labor", "recipients-of-the-order-of-the-red-banner", "janitors", "german-newspaper-editors", "german-expatriates-in-france", "german-expatriates-in-the-soviet-union"] description: "East German politician and diplomat" topic_path: "history" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Florin" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary East German politician and diplomat ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox Officeholder"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Peter Florin |
| image | Bundesarchiv Bild 183-M0921-014, Beglaubigungsschreiben DDR-Vertreter in UNO.jpg |
| caption | Florin and Kurt Waldheim in 1973 |
| order | President of the United Nations General Assembly |
| term_start | 1987 |
| term_end | 1988 |
| predecessor | Humayun Rashid Choudhury |
| successor | Dante Caputo |
| office1 | East German Ambassador to the |
| United Nations | |
| term_start1 | 1973 |
| term_end1 | 1982 |
| predecessor1 | Horst Grunert |
| successor1 | Harry Ott |
| office2 | East German Ambassador to |
| Czechoslovakia | |
| term_start2 | 1967 |
| term_end2 | 1969 |
| predecessor2 | Heinz Willmann |
| successor2 | Herbert Krolikowski |
| office3 | Head of the International Relations Department of the Central Committee |
| 1blankname3 | Secretary |
| 1namedata3 | |
| term_start3 | 1953 |
| term_end3 | 1966 |
| predecessor3 | Grete Keilson |
| successor3 | Paul Markowski |
| {{Collapsed infobox section begin | last |
| titlestyle | border:1px dashed lightgrey;}}{{Infobox officeholder |
| office4 | Member of the Volkskammer |
| for Dresden-Süd, Dresden-West, Dresden-Mitte | |
| term_start4 | 19 November 1954 |
| term_end4 | 5 April 1990 |
| predecessor4 | multi-member district |
| successor4 | Constituency abolished}} |
| birth_date | |
| birth_place | Cologne, Rhine Province, Free State of Prussia, Weimar Republic (now North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany) |
| death_date | |
| death_place | Berlin, Germany |
| father | Wilhelm Florin |
| party | Socialist Unity Party |
| (1946–1989) | |
| otherparty | Communist Party of Germany |
| (1945–1946) | |
| alma_mater | D. Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology (Dipl.-Ing.) |
| occupation | |
| awards | |
| module | {{Infobox military person |
| embed | yes |
| embed_title | Military Service |
| allegiance | Soviet Union |
| branch | Red Army |
| serviceyears | 1941–1944 |
| battles | Second World War |
| module2 | {{collapsible list |
| title | Central institution membership |
| bullets | on |
| title | Other offices held |
| bullets | on |
| :: |
| honorific-prefix = | name = Peter Florin | image = Bundesarchiv Bild 183-M0921-014, Beglaubigungsschreiben DDR-Vertreter in UNO.jpg | caption = Florin and Kurt Waldheim in 1973 | imagesize = | order = President of the United Nations General Assembly | term_start = 1987 | term_end = 1988 | predecessor = Humayun Rashid Choudhury | successor = Dante Caputo |office1 = East German Ambassador to the United Nations |term_start1 = 1973 |term_end1 = 1982 |predecessor1= Horst Grunert |successor1 = Harry Ott |office2 = East German Ambassador to Czechoslovakia |term_start2 = 1967 |term_end2 = 1969 |predecessor2= Heinz Willmann |successor2 = Herbert Krolikowski |office3 = Head of the International Relations Department of the Central Committee |1blankname3 = Secretary |1namedata3 = | term_start3 = 1953 | term_end3 = 1966 | predecessor3 = Grete Keilson | successor3 = Paul Markowski |titlestyle=border:1px dashed lightgrey;}}{{Infobox officeholder |embed=yes | office4 = Member of the Volkskammer for Dresden-Süd, Dresden-West, Dresden-Mitte | term_start4 = 19 November 1954 | term_end4 = 5 April 1990 | predecessor4 = multi-member district | successor4 = Constituency abolished}} | birth_date = | birth_place = Cologne, Rhine Province, Free State of Prussia, Weimar Republic (now North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany) | death_date = | death_place = Berlin, Germany | spouse = | father = Wilhelm Florin | party = Socialist Unity Party (1946–1989) | otherparty = Communist Party of Germany (1945–1946) | alma_mater = D. Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology (Dipl.-Ing.) | occupation = | awards = | module = {{Infobox military person |embed = yes |embed_title = Military Service |allegiance = Soviet Union |branch = Red Army |serviceyears = 1941–1944 |battles = Second World War | module2 = {{collapsible list | title = Central institution membership | bullets = on | 1958–1989: Full member, Central Committee | 1954–1958: Candidate member, Central Committee
| title = Other offices held | bullets = on | 1973–1989: Deputy Minister, Ministry for Foreign Affairs | 1969–1973: State Secretary, Ministry for Foreign Affairs | 1949–1950: Deputy Head, International Relations Department of the Central Committee
Peter Florin (2 October 1921 – 17 February 2014) was an East German politician and diplomat.
Early life
Florin was born in Cologne on 2 October 1921.
His father, Wilhelm Florin (1894–1944), was a leading figure in the pre-war Communist Party of Germany. and, between 1924 and 1933, a member of the Reichstag (national parliament).
Florin left Germany with his parents in 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power and began persecuting Communists, moving first to France and then to the Soviet Union, where he attended the Karl Liebknecht School. There, he studied chemistry at the D. Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology.
During the Second World War, he fought with the Soviet partisans in Belarus. In 1944, Florin became editor of Freies Deutschland, a weekly anti-Nazi newspaper. At the end of the war, he returned to Germany as a member of the Ackermann Group, one of the regional groups sent to lay the groundwork for the Soviet Military Administration in Germany.
Career
Following the war, Florin entered politics in the German Democratic Republic and served as vice-president of the regional parliament of Wittenberg, while working as chief editor of the daily newspaper Freiheit. Then, from 1949 to 1952, he was an advisor for the East German ministry of foreign affairs. In 1953, he was promoted to the head of the Department for International Relations of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany's central committee. From 1954 to 1971, he was a member of the country's parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, which he presided over for a time.
From 1967 to 1969, Florin was East Germany's ambassador to Czechoslovakia. He supported the Soviet crushing of the Prague Spring uprising in 1968. In 1969, he was named secretary of state and first deputy foreign minister.
From 1973 to 1982, Florin was the German Democratic Republic's permanent representative to the United Nations. In 1982, he became president of the national commission for UNESCO in East Germany. In 1987 and 1988, he presided over the forty-second session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Personal life
Peter Florin was married, and had three children. His wife Edel was, in the late 1980s, a professor of Russian literature at Humboldt University in East Berlin.
Florin spoke fluent German, Russian and English, and good French. During his presidency of the United Nations General Assembly, he was, according to the New York Times, "nicknamed 'Comrade Glasnost' by delegates, who s[aw] him as him a symbol of the modern Communist of the Gorbachev era."
He died on 17 February 2014, aged 92.
References
References
- [https://www.un.org/french/ga/president/bios/bio42f.shtml Biography] on the website of the United Nations
- [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE1DE163FF931A1575AC0A961948260 "MAN IN THE NEWS; A German In Charge: Peter Florin"], ''New York Times'', 22 September 1987
- "Florin, Wilhelm * 16.3.1894, † 5.7.1944". Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur: Biographische Datenbanken.
- [https://www.bundesarchiv.de/oeffentlichkeitsarbeit/bilder_dokumente/00767/index-4.html.de "Namensliste der drei KPD-Einsatzgruppen vom 27. April 1945"] {{Webarchive. link. (2014-12-15 German Federal Archives. BArch NY 4036/517. Retrieved November 22, 2011 {{in lang). de
- (17 February 2014). "DDR-Diplomat Peter Florin gestorben (German)". Die Welt.
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