Todor Khristov Zhivkov (also: Zhivkov) was born on September 7, 1911 in Pravets, Bulgaria. In order to escape the lack of prospects in his rural homeland, he moved to the capital Sofia as a teenager.

Initially a member of the youth section of the Bulgarian Communist Party, he rose through the ranks of the party during the Second World War as a resister against the German Reich. After the war, he was appointed by the Soviet occupiers as head of the militia, among other things.

In 1950, he became a member of the party's Central Committee and finally, in 1954, the youngest party leader in the Eastern Bloc to become General Secretary of the Central Committee. As a close ally of the Soviet Union, Zhivkov led his country as an authoritarian dictator until the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1989.

He died in Sofia on August 5, 1998. On the occasion of a state visit, he was received at Wiesbaden City Hall on November 27, 1975 and signed the city's Golden Book.