Dr. Rudolf Paul was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 politician.
He studied law in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 and Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

 and practiced as a lawyer in Gera

Gera

Gera, the third-largest city in the German state of Thuringia , lies in east Thuringia on the river Weiße Elster, approximately 60 kilometres to the south of the city of Leipzig and 80 kilometres to the east of Erfurt...

. He was a member of the German Democratic Party until its dissolution in 1933. Under the Nazi

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 Regime, he was banned from his profession.
Paul was appointed as mayor of Gera on May 7, 1945 by the American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 city commander. After the American retreat from Thuringia

Thuringia

The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....

, the Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 military administration appointed him as first Minister-President of the state on July 16, 1945. He became a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany

Socialist Unity Party of Germany

The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...

in 1946. On September 1, 1947, he fled into the American occupation zone.