Jürgen Zelm

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Jürgen Zelm (born 23 January 1953 in Anklam) is a German football official and former politician. In the 1980s he was a senior Free German Youth (FDJ) official in Bezirk Neubrandenburg and became the last First Secretary of the Bezirk Neubrandenburg SED, serving from December 1989 to March 1990 during the Peaceful Revolution. He then chaired the reformed Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern starting on 3 March 1990. After German reunification, Zelm was elected to the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state parliament in 1990, but he resigned on 31 May 1991 after it emerged that he had collaborated with the Stasi. He left politics and moved into business and sports work.

Zelm grew up in a working-class family and initially trained to become a lower school teacher, studying at the Institute for Teacher Training until 1973. He later studied political science at the Academy for Political and Legal Sciences in Potsdam (1974–1979). He joined the SED in 1971 and, after joining district government work, became a full-time FDJ functionary, progressing to Second Secretary in 1980 and First Secretary in 1984. Since leaving politics, he has held various jobs in business and later became involved in football as a coach and official. He served as the DFB state coach for the women’s teams in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern until 2018 and worked as a coordinator for the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern State Football Association.