Hein­rich Niemann was born in Reck­witz, Saxony, in 1944. After gradua­ting from high school, he comple­ted an appren­ti­ce­ship as an engine buil­der, then began study­ing medi­cine at the Charité of the Humboldt Univer­sity in Berlin. After comple­ting his docto­rate on inter­na­tio­nal trends in medi­cal trai­ning in 1970, he became a specia­list in social hygiene. From 1986 to 1990, he was active in the DDR section of the Inter­na­tio­nal Physi­ci­ans for the Preven­tion of Nuclear War (IPPNW), an inter­na­tio­nal asso­cia­tion of doctors campaig­ning for nuclear disar­ma­ment. He was an elec­ted city coun­cil­lor in Marzahn-Hellers­dorf (Berlin) from 1992 to 2006, inclu­ding 11 years in charge of public health. During this time, he initia­ted his distric­t’s member­ship in the Healthy Cities Network, an inter­na­tio­nal WHO project that calls for health-promo­ting policies.

He is a foun­ding member of the asso­cia­tion “Medi­zin und Gesell­schaft” (Medi­cine and Society) (1991 — 2017), which reviewed the history and achie­ve­ments of the DDR’s health care system, and of the Rapo­port-Gesell­schaft, which is dedi­ca­ted to the memory and reco­gni­tion of Inge and Mitja Rapo­por­t’s work.

See also Dr. med. Nieman­n’s biogra­phy in the project “Kombi­nats­di­rek­to­ren”.