Heinz-Peter Gasse

Heinz-Peter Gasse, known to colleagues simply as Peter, was a German trade unionist and Social Democratic politician from Duisburg whose working life was bound up with the steel industry of the Ruhr. Rising from apprentice electrician to head of IG Metall in North Rhine-Westphalia, he later became labour director of the Hüttenwerke Krupp Mannesmann steelworks and briefly sat in the state parliament. He died on 15 August 2026, aged 73.

Gasse was born in Duisburg on 17 October 1952. He left school with a Hauptschule certificate in 1967 and that September began an apprenticeship as a heavy current electrician, qualifying as a skilled worker in 1970. He joined IG Metall, the metalworkers' union, in the same year he started his training, and soon became a youth representative for his fellow apprentices. From 1970 to 1975 he worked as a skilled electrician and served on the works council.

In 1975 he moved to the Duisburg office of IG Metall as secretary for youth and vocational training. In 1984 he became the union's collective bargaining secretary for the iron and steel industry, and from 1990 to July 2000 he led the Duisburg branch as its managing director and first authorised representative. In July 2000 he took charge of the IG Metall district of North Rhine-Westphalia, representing hundreds of thousands of workers, a post he held until 2004.

A member of the SPD from 1972, Gasse sat on the party's Duisburg sub-district executive from 1995. In 2000 he was directly elected to the 13th Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia, leaving the parliament on 31 August 2001. In 2002 he served on the federal Commission for Modern Services in the Labour Market, widely known as the Hartz Commission, whose proposals reshaped German labour market policy.

In summer 2004 he returned to the steelworks he knew best, becoming managing director for personnel and labour director at Hüttenwerke Krupp Mannesmann, where he had already represented employees on the supervisory board since 1990. Beyond his professional roles he worked for peaceful coexistence between cultures in Duisburg and was regarded as the initiator of the city's Barbara celebration, an ecumenical service honouring Saint Barbara, patron saint of miners and steelworkers, held for some twenty years. He received the Federal Cross of Merit in 2014.

His death was announced by IG Metall Duisburg-Dinslaken, whose tribute said he knew the steelworks like hardly anyone else and that for him the plant was not just a workplace but a piece of home. The union ended its farewell with the miners' greeting: "Glück auf, Peter. We will not forget you." The cause of his death was not made public.