Karl Schirdewan

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Karl Schirdewan, 1952

Karl Schirdewan (born May 14, 1907 in Stettin ; † July 14, 1998 in Potsdam ) was a politician in the GDR . He originally lived in Silesia , where he became a KPD youth functionary in the Weimar Republic , and in Bavaria after the war, before moving to Berlin. There he quickly rose to the new SED . He became a senior member of the Central Committee. After Stalin's death in 1953, he spoke out in favor of some criticism of the Stalin era and later deviated from the official party line. 1958 ended his membership in the Central Committee.

Life

youth

His birth father is unknown; his mother, Josephine Aretz, left him to the Schirdewan foster family in Breslau . He graduated from middle school in 1923, but could not learn his dream job as a bookseller. Schirdewan initially did an apprenticeship in a grain store and later worked as an errand boy, office assistant and transport worker.

Weimar Republic and National Socialism

Schirdewan joined the KJVD in 1923 and the KPD in 1925 . At the end of the 1920s he became a member of the Central Committee (ZK) of the Communist Youth Association of Germany and its district chairman in Silesia . In 1931, when he was in charge of the Junge Garde publishing house , he assumed a full-time position within the party organization for the first time.

After Hitler came to power in 1933, he had to go underground. In 1934 he was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison for “preparing for high treason”. After serving this sentence, he was imprisoned in a concentration camp ( Sachsenhausen concentration camp and Flossenbürg concentration camp ) and was only released again at the end of the war in 1945.

Post war career

Karl Schirdewan (left) received the Patriotic Order of Merit in gold in 1955

After the end of the war, Schirdewan worked briefly for the KPD in Bavaria , but in 1945 he moved to the party headquarters in Berlin . In 1945 he was promoted to the KPD's central committee (ZK) in the Soviet occupation zone , and after the forced unification of the KPD and SPD to form the SED , he worked on their executive committee or central committee. In 1947 Schirdewan became head of a working group on the “study of illegal party history”, in 1949 deputy head of the Western Commission at the SED party executive and in 1950 head of the newly formed Western Department at the SED Central Committee . In this function he also effectively headed the Social Democratic Action . From 1952 he was first secretary of the SED state leadership in Saxony, then first secretary of the district leadership in Leipzig . From 1953 he was a member of the Politburo . In the Central Committee he performed various special functions, such as secretary of the department for governing bodies and cadres (1953–1958) and member of the security commission (1954–1957). The 1950s were the high point of Karl Schirdewan's political career, when he was considered the second man after Walter Ulbricht . On May 6, 1955, Schirdewan was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in gold.

Fall

Despite this high position, Schirdewan was critical of Ulbricht - according to contemporary reports even with downright hatred. According to his own admission, in his opinion the necessary lessons were not learned from the uprising of June 17, 1953 . After Stalin's death in 1953 and the ensuing de-Stalinization , Schirdewan also hoped for a critical examination of the Stalin era in the GDR, but this was suppressed by Ulbricht. In addition, Schirdewan advocated the option of a unified Germany, but he was unable to assert these ideas within the SED. He was accused of judging the German question too one-sidedly, of not following the party line sufficiently and of playing down the 1956 Hungarian popular uprising .

Together with his colleague Ernst Wollweber , he lost his post after the 35th session of the SED Central Committee in February 1958. Walter Ulbricht gave the indictment speech at this conference. Schirdewan was expelled from the Politburo and the Central Committee of the SED for " factional activity " and was transferred to another sentence. From 1958 to 1965 he was head of the State Archives Administration (StAV).

After 1989

After the fall of the Wall he was rehabilitated by the PDS in 1990 and accepted into the party's council of elders. "The failure of the SED before history (so his life conclusion) could not be surpassed [was]". Karl Schirdewan died on July 14, 1998 in Potsdam.

He was married to Gisela Schirdewan (born 1922) and had four children. Her daughter Rosemarie Heise-Schirdewan was a member of the People's Chamber for the PDS in 1990 . The politicians of the left and MEP Martin Schirdewan is the grandson.

Fonts

  • Revolt against Ulbricht. Structure of the Taschenbuch Verlag, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-7466-8008-5 .
  • A century of life. Memories and visions. Edition Ost, Berlin 1998, 334 pp. ISBN 3-929161-34-6 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Karl Schirdewan  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In this respect, the phrase “he lost his parents at an early age” in the Munzinger archive is misleading
  2. ↑ "He was always the best in his class" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 1 , 1967, p. 36-37 ( online ).
  3. ^ Andreas Malycha, Peter Jochen Winters: The SED. History of a German party. CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-59231-7 , p. 145.
  4. ↑ "Rehabilitated on January 20, 1990 by the Central Arbitration Commission of the SED / PDS." In: Schirdewan, Karl (eigtl .: Aretz). In: Biographical databases of the Federal Foundation for the processing of the SED dictatorship . Retrieved March 6, 2019 .
  5. ^ Died Karl Schirdewan . In: Der Spiegel . No. 30 , 1998, pp. 170 ( online ).
  6. ↑ In addition the review by Herbert Mayer: The second man behind Ulbricht. Karl Schirdewan: A Century of Life: Memories and Visions - A Review. In: Berlin Reading Signs. Edition 4/99, Edition Luisenstadt, 1999, archived from the original on April 30, 2005 ; accessed on March 6, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Schirdewan, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (KPD, SED), MdV
DATE OF BIRTH May 14, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Szczecin
DATE OF DEATH July 14, 1998
Place of death Potsdam