1.
Leadership of East Germany
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The political leadership of East Germany was in the hands of several offices. Prior the proclamation of an East German state, the Soviets established in 1948 the German Economic Commission as a de facto government in their occupation zone. On 7 October 1949 an East German state, called the German Democratic Republic, was proclaimed, for most of its existence, the most important position in the GDR was that of the General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party. The Communist party and its leader held ultimate power and authority over state, the formal head of state originally was the President of the German Democratic Republic. After the death of incumbent Wilhelm Pieck in 1960, the office was replaced by a head of state. The position of chairman was commonly held by the party leader, government was headed by the Council of Ministers and its chairman, sometimes colloquially called Prime Minister. The Council was composed exclusively of members of the SEDs Central Committee and Politburo, hence, the partys subsequent leaders were no more leaders of East Germany than the leaders of other parties. List of German monarchs President of Germany President of Germany List of German presidents Chancellor of Germany List of Chancellors of Germany World Statesmen – East Germany
2.
East Germany
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East Germany, formally the German Democratic Republic, was an Eastern Bloc state during the Cold War period. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin, but did not include it, as a result, the German Democratic Republic was established in the Soviet Zone, while the Federal Republic was established in the three western zones. East Germany, which lies culturally in Central Germany, was a state of the Soviet Union. Soviet occupation authorities began transferring administrative responsibility to German communist leaders in 1948, Soviet forces, however, remained in the country throughout the Cold War. Until 1989, the GDR was governed by the Socialist Unity Party, though other parties participated in its alliance organisation. The economy was centrally planned, and increasingly state-owned, prices of basic goods and services were set by central government planners, rather than rising and falling through supply and demand. Although the GDR had to pay war reparations to the USSR. Nonetheless it did not match the growth of West Germany. Emigration to the West was a significant problem—as many of the emigrants were well-educated young people, the government fortified its western borders and, in 1961, built the Berlin Wall. Many people attempting to flee were killed by guards or booby traps. In 1989, numerous social and political forces in the GDR and abroad led to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the following year open elections were held, and international negotiations led to the signing of the Final Settlement treaty on the status and borders of Germany. The GDR was dissolved and Germany was unified on 3 October 1990, internally, the GDR also bordered the Soviet sector of Allied-occupied Berlin known as East Berlin which was also administered as the states de facto capital. It also bordered the three sectors occupied by the United States, United Kingdom and France known collectively as West Berlin. The three sectors occupied by the Western nations were sealed off from the rest of the GDR by the Berlin Wall from its construction in 1961 until it was brought down in 1989, the official name was Deutsche Demokratische Republik, usually abbreviated to DDR. West Germans, the media and statesmen purposely avoided the official name and its abbreviation, instead using terms like Ostzone, Sowjetische Besatzungszone. The centre of power in East Berlin was referred to as Pankow. Over time, however, the abbreviation DDR was also used colloquially by West Germans. However, this use was not always consistent, for example, before World War II, Ostdeutschland was used to describe all the territories east of the Elbe, as reflected in the works of sociologist Max Weber and political theorist Carl Schmitt
3.
Wilhelm Pieck
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Friedrich Wilhelm Reinhold Pieck was a German politician and Communist. In 1949, he became the first President of the German Democratic Republic and his successor as head of state was Walter Ulbricht, who served as chairman of the Council of State. Pieck was born the son of a coachman in the part of Guben, Germany. While he initially trained to become a carpenter, a combination of events, determined ideology. As a carpenter, in 1894 Pieck joined the wood-workers federation, Pieck became the chairman of the party urban district in 1899, and in 1906 became full-time secretary of the SPD. As Bremen Party secretary in 1916, Pieck had asked Anton Pannekoek to continue teaching socialist theory in the party school, although the majority of the SPD supported the German government in World War I, Pieck was a member of the partys left wing, which opposed the war. Piecks openness in doing so led to his arrest and detention in a military prison, after being released, Pieck briefly lived in exile in Amsterdam. Upon his return to Berlin in 1918, Pieck joined the newly founded Communist Party of Germany, on January 16,1919 Pieck, along with Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were arrested, Liebknecht and Luxemburg were then murdered while being taken to prison by a unit of Freikorps. While the two were being murdered, Pieck managed to escape, in 1922, he became a founding member of the International Red Aid, serving first on the executive committee. In May 1925, he became the chairman of the Rote Hilfe, following the Nazi Partys takeover in 1933, Pieck went into exile again, first in France, then in Moscow in 1935. In Moscow, Pieck served the Communist Party in a variety of capacities, from 1935 until 1943, he held the position of Secretary of the Communist International. In 1943 Pieck was among the founders of the National Committee for a Free Germany, the NKFD planned for the future of Germany after World War II. At the conclusion of the war in 1945 Pieck returned to Germany with the victorious Red Army, a year later, he helped engineer the merger of the eastern branches of the KPD and SPD into the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. He was elected as the merged partys co-chairman, alongside former SPD leader Otto Grotewohl, in 1949 Pieck was elected president of the GDR. He served as the president of the GDR until his death in 1960. He lost the chairmanship of the SED in 1950, when Walter Ulbricht became the partys first secretary, nonetheless, due to Joseph Stalins trust in him, he retained his other posts. Pieck lived at Majakowskiring 29, Pankow, East Berlin and his daughter Elly Winter held various posts in the SED and East German government
4.
Walter Ulbricht
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Walter Ernst Paul Ulbricht was a German Communist politician. Ulbricht played a role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany. As the First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party 1950 to 1971, from President Wilhelm Piecks death in 1960, he was also the East German head of state until his own death in 1973. He followed Stalins guidelines very closely, and made sure everyone else in East Germany did so as well. Ulbricht was born in Leipzig, Saxony, to Pauline Ida and Ernst August Ulbricht and he spent eight years in primary school. After leaving school, he trained to be a joiner, both his parents worked actively for the Social Democratic Party, which Walter joined in 1912. Ulbricht served in World War I from 1915 to 1917 in Galicia on the Eastern Front and he deserted in 1918, as he had opposed the war from the beginning. Imprisoned in Charleroi, in 1918 he was released as part of the collapse of Imperial Germany, in 1917 he became a member of the Independent Social Democratic Party after it split off from the Social Democratic Party over support of Germanys participation in World War I. During the German Revolution, he became a member of the soviet of his army corps. Along with the bulk of the USPD, he joined the KPD in 1920 and he rose fast in the ranks of the KPD, becoming a member of the Central Committee in 1923. Ulbricht attended the International Lenin School of the Comintern in Moscow in 1924/1925, the electors subsequently voted him into the regional parliament of Saxony in 1926. He became a Member of the Reichstag for South Westphalia from 1928 to 1933 and served as KPD chairman in Berlin, in the years before the 1933 Nazi election to power, paramilitary wings of Marxist and extreme nationalist parties provoked massive riots connected with demonstrations. Besides the Berlin Police, the KPDs arch-enemies were street-fighters affiliated with the Nazi Party, the Monarchist German National Peoples Party, and radical nationalist parties. The Social Democratic Party of Germany, which dominated local and national politics from 1918-1931, for this reason, the Comintern ordered the KPD to cooperate with the Nazis against the SPD. At an event arranged by the Nazi Party in January 1931, Ulbricht was allowed by Joseph Goebbels, subsequently, Goebbels delivered his own speech. The attempt at a friendly discussion turned hostile, and a struggle between Nazis and Communists began, police officers divided them, both sides had tried to use this event for their election propaganda. The Nazi Party attained power in Germany in January 1933, and very quickly began a purge of Communist, following the arrest of the KPDs leader, Ernst Thälmann, Ulbricht campaigned to be Thälmanns replacement as head of the Party. Many competitors for the leadership were killed in the Soviet Union because of Ulbricht, Ulbricht lived in exile in Paris and Prague from 1933 to 1937
5.
Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk
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A non-partisan moderate conservative, he was appointed to the post by Franz von Papen in 1932. At the request of President Paul von Hindenburg, he continued in office under Kurt von Schleicher. During May 1945, after the suicides of Hitler and his designated successor Joseph Goebbels, besides Adolf Hitler himself, Schwerin von Krosigk and Wilhelm Frick were the only members of the Third Reichs cabinet to serve continuously from Hitlers appointment as Chancellor until his death. By receiving the golden NSDAP Party Badge from Adolf Hitler, given for honor on January 30,1937 and he also joined the academy of German Law in 1937. At the 1949 Ministries Trial, he was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to 10 years in jail and he later worked as an author and publicist. Krosigk studied law and political science at Halle and Lausanne and then, as a Rhodes Scholar, at Oriel College, during the First World War, Krosigk served in the German Army, attaining the rank of Lieutenant, and was awarded the Iron Cross. On 7 February 1918, during the war, he had married Baroness Ehrengard von Plettenberg, with whom he had four sons, in 1922, he became an Oberregierungsrat and in 1929, a ministerial director and head of the budget department at the finance ministry. In 1931, he joined the department of reparations payments, formed to deal with the reparations Germany still owed the Allied Powers after the Great War, several members of his family took part in assassination attempts against Adolf Hitler, but not Krosigk himself. He was rarely seen in public, and Hitler did not hold cabinet meetings, indeed. Krosigk was thus more of an administrator of the finance ministry than a political figure, on 1 May 1945, after Goebbelss suicide, Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz asked Schwerin von Krosigk to become the Chancellor of the Acting Government. He declined but did accept the position of Leading Minister, rapidly advancing Allied forces limited the jurisdiction of the new German government to an area around Flensburg near the Danish border, where Dönitzs headquarters were located, along with Mürwik. Accordingly, this administration was referred to as the Flensburg government, Dönitz and Schwerin von Krosigk attempted to negotiate an armistice with the Western allies while continuing to resist the Soviet Army. However, after the surrender, the Flensburg government was mostly treated as inconsequential by the western military command. On 23 May 1945, the Flensburg Government was dissolved by order of the Supreme Allied Commander, Krosigk was put on trial at Nuremberg, along with other leading members of the German government during the time of the Nazi government. Found guilty in the Ministries Trial in 1949, he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment, in later years, Schwerin von Krosigk wrote several books on economic policy and two versions of his memoirs. Schwerin von Krosigk died in 1977 in the city of Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany and his elder daughter, Felicitas-Anita, Countess Schwerin von Krosigk, is the mother of Alternative for Germany Member of the European Parliament Beatrix von Storch. Die große Zeit des Feuers – Der Weg der deutschen Industrie,3 volumes,1959, alles auf Wagnis – der Kaufmann gestern, heute und morgen,1963. Persönliche Erinnerungen, memoirs,3 volumes,1974, wer war was vor und nach 1945
6.
Nazi Germany
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Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943, the period is also known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period. The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery, a national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany. All power was centralised in Hitlers person, and his word became above all laws, the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitlers favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending, extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen. The return to economic stability boosted the regimes popularity, racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitlers rule was ruthlessly suppressed, members of the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were also oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned, education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed, recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands and it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940, reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide gradually turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943
7.
Willi Stoph
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Willi Stoph was an East German politician. He served as Prime Minister of the German Democratic Republic from 1964 to 1973 and he also served as chairman of the State Council from 1973 to 1976. Stoph was born in Berlin in 1914, his father died the year in World War I. In 1928, Stoph joined the Communist Youth League of Germany and he also served in the Wehrmacht from 1935 to 1937, and again during World War II from 1940 to 1945. He was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class and rose to the rank of Unteroffizier, following the establishment of the GDR in 1949, Stoph became a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and member of the Volkskammer in 1950. He was named to the Politbüro in 1953 and he served as Interior Minister from 9 May 1952 to 1 July 1955, and as East Germanys first Defense Minister from 18 January 1956 to 14 July 1960. As defense minister, he was awarded the rank of Armeegeneral, after serving as first deputy prime minister from 1960 to 1964, he was named Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or prime minister, in 1964. He was initially thought to be the apparent to longtime East German leader Walter Ulbricht. After Ulbrichts death in 1973, Stoph became Chairman of the Council of State--a post equivalent in rank to president of the GDR, after Volkskammer elections in 1976, the state and party leadership structure was re-arranged, and Stoph once again became Chairman of the Council of Ministers. As Prime Minister, Stoph began a series of negotiations with West German Chancellor Willy Brandt in 1970 and it marked the first ever meeting between the leaders of East and West Germany. Stoph was known as a man who could be trusted to carry out the directives of the SEDs Politburo, indeed, for the most part, Stoph was a loyal supporter of Honecker. However, he joined the plot to him in October 1989. At the Politburo meeting at which Honecker was voted out, Stoph made the motion to depose Honecker, a month later, on 7 November, Stoph and his entire 44-member cabinet resigned in response to public pressure. On 8 November, the Central Committee of the SED nominated Hans Modrow as Stophs replacement, Stoph was subsequently arrested for corruption in December 1989. In a desperate attempt to rebuild its image, the Party of Democratic Socialism, successor to the SED and he was later spared detention due to health reasons. In 1994, a court in Berlin decided that he should not get back his seized savings of 200,000 DM, Stoph died in Berlin at the age of 84 on 13 April 1999 as the last surviving leader of East Germany before Egon Krenz
8.
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
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The partys dominant figure from 1950 to 1971, and effective leader of East Germany, was Walter Ulbricht. In 1953, an uprising against the Party was met with violent suppression by the Ministry of State Security and the Soviet Army. In 1971, Ulbricht was succeeded by Erich Honecker who presided over a period in the development of the GDR until he was forced to step down during the 1989 revolution. The partys last leader, Egon Krenz, was unsuccessful in his attempt to retain the SEDs hold on political governance of the GDR and was imprisoned after German reunification, the SEDs long-suppressed reform wing took over the party in the fall of 1989. In hopes of changing its image, on 16 December it renamed itself the Party of Democratic Socialism, abandoning Marxism–Leninism and it received 16. 4% of the vote in the 1990 parliamentary elections. In 2007, the PDS merged with Labour and Social Justice into The Left, official East German and Soviet histories portrayed this merger as a voluntary pooling of efforts by the socialist parties. However, there is evidence that the merger was more troubled than commonly portrayed. By all accounts, the Soviet occupation authorities applied pressure on the SPDs eastern branch to merge with the KPD. The newly merged party, with the help of the Soviet authorities, however, these elections were held under less-than-secret conditions, thus setting the tone for the next four decades. A truer picture of the SEDs support came with the elections in Berlin. In that contest, the SED received less than half the votes of the SPD, the bulk of the Berlin SPD remained aloof from the merger, even though Berlin was deep inside the Soviet zone. The Soviet Military Administration in Germany directly governed the areas of Germany following World War II. Also reported was a deal of difficulty in convincing the masses that the SED was a German political party. Soviet intelligence claimed to have a list of names of an SPD group within the SED that was covertly forging links with the SPD in the West, a problem for the Soviets that they identified with the early SED was its potential to develop into a nationalist party. At large party meetings, members applauded speakers who talked of nationalism much more than when they spoke of solving social problems, although it was nominally a merger of equals, from the beginning the SED was dominated by Communists. By the late 1940s, the SED began to purge most recalcitrant Social Democrats from its ranks, by the time of East Germanys formal establishment in 1949, the SED was a full-fledged Communist party—essentially the KPD under a new name. It began to develop along lines similar to other Communist parties in the Soviet bloc, over the years, the SED gained a reputation as one of the most hardline parties in the Soviet bloc. When Mikhail Gorbachev initiated reforms in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, the party organisation was based on, and co-located with, the institutions of the German Democratic Republic
9.
Braunschweig
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Braunschweig, also called Brunswick in English, is a city of 252,768 people, in the state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the furthest navigable point of the Oker river, today, Braunschweig is the second largest city in Lower Saxony and a major centre of scientific research and development. The date and circumstances of the foundation are unknown. The towns original name of Brunswik is a combination of the name Bruno and Low German wik, the towns name therefore indicates an ideal resting-place, as it lay by a ford across the Oker River. Another explanation of the name is that it comes from Brand. The city was first mentioned in documents from the St. Magni Church from 1031, up to the 12th century, Braunschweig was ruled by the Saxon noble family of the Brunonids, then, through marriage, it fell to the House of Welf. In 1142 Henry the Lion of the House of Welf became duke of Saxony and he turned Dankwarderode Castle, the residence of the counts of Brunswick, into his own Pfalz and developed the city further to represent his authority. Under Henrys rule the Cathedral of St. Blasius was built and he also had the statue of a lion, his heraldic animal, the lion subsequently became the citys landmark. Henry the Lion became so powerful that he dared to refuse military aid to the emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, Henry went into exile in England. He had previously established ties to the English crown in 1168, through his marriage to King Henry II of Englands daughter Matilda, however, his son Otto, who could regain influence and was eventually crowned Holy Roman Emperor, continued to foster the citys development. By the year 1600, Braunschweig was the seventh largest city in Germany, the Princes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel didnt regain control over the city until the late 17th century, when Rudolph Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, took the city by siege. In the 18th century Braunschweig was not only a political, influenced by the philosophy of the Enlightenment, dukes like Anthony Ulrich and Charles I became patrons of the arts and sciences. In 1745 Charles I founded the Collegium Carolinum, predecessor of the Braunschweig University of Technology, with this he attracted poets and thinkers such as Lessing, Leisewitz, and Jakob Mauvillon to his court and the city. Emilia Galotti by Lessing and Goethes Faust were performed for the first time in Braunschweig, in 1806, the city was captured by the French during the Napoleonic Wars and became part of the short-lived Napoleonic Kingdom of Westphalia in 1807. The exiled duke Frederick William raised a corps, the Black Brunswickers. After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Braunschweig was made capital of the reestablished independent Duchy of Brunswick, in the aftermath of the July Revolution in 1830, in Brunswick duke Charles II was forced to abdicate. His absolutist governing style had alienated the nobility and bourgeoisie. During the night of 7–8 September 1830, the palace in Braunschweig was stormed by an angry mob, set on fire
10.
Duchy of Brunswick
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The Duchy of Brunswick was a historical German state. Its capital was the city of Brunswick and it was established as the successor state of the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In the course of the 19th-century history of Germany, the duchy was part of the German Confederation and it was disestablished after the end of World War I, its territory incorporated into the Weimar Republic as the Free State of Brunswick. The title Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg was held, from 1235 on and these holdings did not have all of the formal characteristics of a modern unitary state, being neither compact nor indivisible. The unifying element of all territories was that they were ruled by male-line descendants of Duke Otto I. After several early divisions, Brunswick-Lüneburg re-unified under Duke Magnus II, following his death, his three sons jointly ruled the Duchy. After the murder of their brother Frederick I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, brothers Bernard and Henry redivided the land, received the southern half of Brunswick-Lüneburg as Prince of Wolfenbüttel while his brother John became Prince of Lüneburg. Wolfenbüttel fell to his brother Albert II, Otto the Mild 1318–1344, son of Albert II, was Prince of Wolfenbüttel and Prince of Göttingen. After his death his son Ernest became Prince of Göttingen 1344–1367, Magnus the Pious became Prince of Wolfenbüttel 1344–1369. Magnus son Magnus II with the Necklace, Prince of Wolfenbüttel 1369–1373, the War of the Lüneburg Succession continued until 1388. Frederick 1373–1400, son of Magnus II, conquered Lüneburg in 1388, succeeded by his brothers, Henry the Mild, 1400–1408 Bernard, 1409–1428. Returned control of Wolfenbüttel to his nephew, Henrys son, was deprived by his brother, Henry the Peaceful 1432–1473, moved the residence to Wolfenbüttel. William regained control of Wolfenbüttel after his brothers death, and left the Principality to his two sons, Frederick III 1482–1484, imprisoned and deprived of power by his younger brother, William IV 1484–1491. Took control of all of Wolfenbüttel, then ceded Wolfenbüttel to his sons, co-rulers, sons of William IV, Eric I 1491–1494. Divided the territory in 1494, taking Calenberg, sole ruler in Wolfenbüttel from 1494. Acquired Calenberg in 1584 on the death of his cousin Eric II, last of the male descendants of Albert the Tall. On Frederick Ulrichs death, his complex of territories passed to a line of distant cousins ruling in Lüneburg, Wolfenbüttel was eventually awarded to Augustus, son of Henry of Dannenberg. Augustus 1635–1666 Augustuss sons succeeded him, sometimes ruling together, Rudolph Augustus 1666–1704 Anthony Ulrich 1685–1702, deposed 1702–1704 for allying with France in the War of the Spanish Succession
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