# Klaus Reichenbach

Klaus Reichenbach (born 22 September 1945) is a German football official and former politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
As minister in the Minister-President's Office in the cabinet of Lothar de Maizière, Reichenbach was an important figure in coordinating German reunification.
He left politics in 1994, partly because he was hindered by his past as a bloc party politician loyal to the SED, and worked as lawyer and served as president of the Saxony Football Association and board member of the German Football Association (DFB).

## Life and career
### Early career

Reichenbach's father owned the company Hermann Reichenbach KG in Hartmannsdorf near Chemnitz, which specialized in manufacturing women's underwear.
After training as a mechanical engineer, Reichenbach studied engineering economics at the Textile College in Reichenbach im Vogtland. Following his father's death in 1969, he became the managing director of the family business, which he continued to lead as plant manager after its forced nationalization in 1972.
Between 1975 and 1980, he completed a distance-learning program at the Academy for Political and Legal Sciences of the GDR in Potsdam, de facto a Marxist-Leninist cadre factory of the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED), earning a diploma in political science (Dipl.-Staatswiss.). From 1982 to 1986, he additionally undertook a distance-learning law program at Humboldt University of Berlin, graduating as a lawyer (Dipl.-Jur.).
Beginning in 1985, he served as plant manager and later director of VEB Feinstrickwaren "Goldfasan" in Burgstädt.

### Bloc party politician

Reichenbach joined the East German Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a bloc party beholden to the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED), in 1969.
By 1974, he became chairman of the Karl-Marx-Stadt-Land CDU and joined the party's main board in 1987.
On 1 July 1988, he was made chairman of the Bezirk Karl-Marx-Stadt CDU.
In this role, Reichenbach collaborated with the local SED, providing them an "annual assessment". In an October 1989 paper to the Bezirk Karl-Marx-Stadt SED security department, Reichenbach even developed plans for disaster and war cases for the year 1990.
On 3 March 1990, during the Peaceful Revolution, he was elected chairman of the reconstituted Saxon CDU.

### de Maizière Government

In the first free elections in the GDR, Reichenbach was elected to the Volkskammer in March 1990 for Bezirk Karl-Marx-Stadt, being the first-placed candidate on the CDU's list. He was thereafter appointed as minister in the Minister-President's Office in the cabinet of Lothar de Maizière, serving from April until October 1990. The ministry replaced the secretariat of the chairman of the Council of Ministers, mirroring the structure of the Federal Chancellery.
The ministry prepared cabinet meetings and controlled information flow to the minister-president. It was crucially responsible for coordinating German reunification, the head of the German Unity Task Force Parliamentary State Secretary Günther Krause leading the negotiations with the Federal Republic on the Unification Treaty. Additionally, it supervised the Treuhandanstalt.

### Reunified Germany

Reichenbach was one of 144 Volkskammer members co-opted to the Bundestag following German reunification on 3 October 1990. In the first all-German Bundestag election in December 1990, he won the direct mandate in the constituency of Chemnitz II – Chemnitz-Land. Reichenbach served on the Bundestag's Sports Committee, the European Community Committee, and from 1992, on the Special Committee for the European Union.
He was considered a candidate for the role of Minister-President of Saxony, but he declined for personal reasons and Kurt Biedenkopf, briefly chairman of North Rhine-Westphalia CDU in the 80s, instead became the CDU's top candidate for the October 1990 state elections and subsequently Minister-President.
Amid continuous pressure regarding his past as a high-ranking bloc party politician, he resigned as chairman of the Saxon CDU in September 1991, with Biedenkopf taking over this position as well.
Being frustrated by his lack of influence as a backbencher, Reichenbach retired from politics completely in the 1994 federal election and has since worked as a lawyer in Hartmannsdorf.

### Football Official

From its founding on 6 October 1990 until his resignation on 23 April 2016, Reichenbach was president of the Saxony Football Association (SFV). He was subsequently named its honorary president.
He was also vice-president of the Northeastern German Football Association (NOFV) and from 1997 to 2016, a member of the board of the German Football Association (DFB), which later honored him with honorary membership.