Walter Bartel

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Portrait dated February 1947

Walter Bartel (born September 15, 1904 in Fürstenberg / Havel ; † January 16, 1992 in Berlin ) was a German communist resistance fighter , Marxist-Leninist historian and university professor .

Life

Bartel grew up in a working-class family and trained as a businessman after attending primary and secondary school. In 1920 he joined the Communist Youth Association of Germany (KJVD) and in 1923 joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). In 1927 he led the delegation from Germany to the International Youth Congress that took place in Moscow . In 1929 he began studying Marxism-Leninism at the Moscow Lenin School , where he received an apprenticeship . In 1932 he returned to Germany. Here he took part in the political struggle against the emerging National Socialism . Because of this illegal activity, he was sentenced to a 27-month prison term for “preparation for high treason ” , which he spent from 1933 to 1935 in the Brandenburg prison. After his release he emigrated to the ČSR , but was expelled from the KPD for alleged treason. In March 1939 the German occupation arrested him and delivered him to the Buchenwald concentration camp . Bartel was employed in Buchenwald in the carpentry and work statistics command. Here, together with Ernst Busse and Harry Kuhn, he soon became a member of the illegal party leadership, and from 1943 he was chairman of the international camp committee , which coordinated the resistance in the camp. After the liberation by the 3rd US Army , he was recognized by the American camp commandant as head of the former camp with equal rights.

After 1945 he was re-admitted to the KPD after several reviews and had been a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) since the forced unification of the SPD and KPD . After a short time as a public education department at the Berlin magistrate , he became Wilhelm Pieck's personal advisor for problems in party work in 1946 . In 1953 he was checked again within the party. Then he had to shift his field of activity to academic work. He became a doctor of philosophy doctorate and became a professor of Modern History at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig . From 1957 to 1962 he was director of the German Institute for Contemporary History (DIZ). This was followed by a teaching position for modern and contemporary history at the Berlin Humboldt University . In 1965 he became Vice Rector for Student Affairs and in 1967 Full Professor . Since the 1970s he has been committed to the concerns of the Buchenwald survivors and became chairman of the Buchenwald committee , worked on the board of the committee of anti-fascist resistance fighters . From 1970 he was deputy chairman of the International Buchenwald-Dora and Commands Committee .

Together with a small group of like-minded people, Bartel pushed ahead with the orientation of the historical seminars and institutes in the GDR according to the SED guidelines. At first, not every GDR historian followed the Marxist tradition. According to Lothar Mertens , Walter Bartel - similar to Horst Bartel , Karl Bittel , Rudolf Lindau and Albert Schreiner - lacked the necessary specialist knowledge, so that he was even viewed within the party as a pure propagandist, along with the others mentioned.

Honors

Fonts

  • La deportazione nei campi di sterminio nazisti / studi e testimonianze . Angeli, Milano 1987.
  • Wilhelm Pieck . Young World Publishing House, Berlin 1985.
  • Beech forest . Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 4th, completely revised edition, Berlin 1983.
  • The international anti-fascist activism liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp . National dunning u. Buchenwald Memorial, 1979.
  • Karl Liebknecht . Weltkreis-Verlags-GmbH, Dortmund [1974].
  • The area of ​​responsibility of the head of the DIV Office of the Main Economic and Administrative Office of the SS . [National Council of the National Front of Democratic Germany], Berlin [1966].
  • Lewica niemieckiej socjaldemokracji w walce przeeiwko militaryzmowi i wojnie . Książka i wiedza, Warszawa 1963.
  • History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union . 6 vols., German military publishing house, Berlin 1962–1968.
  • German Imperialism and the Second World War / Volume 5. Articles on the topic: The results and consequences of the Second World War and the smashing of German imperialism . Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1962.
  • Beech forest varuje . Státní Nakl. politické literatury, Praha 1962.
  • Karl Liebknecht . VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie, Leipzig 1961.
  • A hero of the nation . New Life Publishing House, Berlin 1961.
  • Beech forest . Kongress-Verlag, Berlin 1960.
  • Beech forest. Reminder and obligation. Documents and reports. Edited on behalf of the Fédération Internationale des Résistants, des Victimes et des Prisonniers du Fascisme (FIR) by the International Buchenwald Committee and the Committee of Antifascist Resistance Fighters in the GDR. Röderbergverlag, Frankfurt am Main 1960.
  • Ideology of crime and ruin . Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1960.
  • Levye v germanskoj social-Demokratieii v bor'be protiv militarizma i vojny , Izd. inostrannoj literatury, Moskva 1959.
  • Visiting the children . Children's book publisher, Berlin 1959.
  • The left in the German social democracy in the fight against militarism and war. 1-8 Tsd., Dietz-Verlag: Berlin 1958; Full text archive
  • In memory of the loyal fellow campaigner Ernst Thälmann Albert Kuntz . SED district leadership, Wurzen [1957].
  • The left in the German social democracy in the fight against militarism and war . o. O., [1957].
  • P'i k'o tsung t'ung, Shao nier ïeh t'ung ch'u pan shen , Shanghai 1956.
  • Lesson letters for distance learning for middle school teachers / history. / 19./20. Germany in the time of the fascist dictatorship , 2., verb. Ed. As Ms. gedr., 1956.
  • Germany during the fascist dictatorship 1933–1945 . Verl. Volk u. Knowledge, Berlin 1956.
  • Our President Wilhelm Pieck . Children's book publisher, Berlin 1954.
  • Wilhelm Pieck . Práce, Prague 1952.
  • Karel Liebknecht proti Kruppovi . Rovnost, Prague 1952.
  • Ernst Thälmann, a courageous fighter against fascism and imperialist war . People and Knowledge, Berlin 1951.
  • Karl Liebknecht against Krupp . Dietz, Berlin 1951.
  • Wilhelm Pieck, President of the German Democratic Republic . Office for Information of the Government of the German Democratic Republic, Berlin [1950].
  • Action / Berlin Association of the Persecuted of the Nazi Regime , Association of the Persecuted of the Nazi Regime . SAPMO-BArch, Berlin 1948/49.
  • Buchenwald concentration camp . Thüringer Volksverlag, Weimar 1949.

literature

  • Karin Hartewig, Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk :  Bartel, Walter . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  • Lothar Mertens : Bartel, Walter. In: Ders .: Lexicon of GDR historians. Biographies and bibliographies on the historians from the German Democratic Republic. Saur, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-598-11673-X , p. 115 f.
  • Philipp Neumann: "... to find a language regulation". On the canonization of the communist Buchenwald memory in the documentation warning and obligation. In: Katharina Stengel, Werner Konitzer (Ed.): Victims as actors. Interventions by former Nazi victims in the post-war period. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 3-593-38734-4 , pp. 151-173.
  • Lutz Niethammer (ed.): The "cleaned anti-fascism". The SED and the communist Kapos von Buchenwald. Academy, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-05-002647-2 .
  • Siegfried Prokop , Siegfried Schwarz (Ed.): Contemporary history research in the GDR. Walter Bartel (1904–1992) - a threatened life. Contributions to the 100th birthday of Walter Bartel. RLS Brandenburg, Potsdam 2005, ISBN 3-935530-42-0 .

Web links

Commons : Walter Bartel  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harry Stein, Buchenwald Memorial (ed.): Buchenwald Concentration Camp 1937–1945 , volume accompanying the permanent historical exhibition, Göttingen 1999, p. 292 f.
  2. ^ Emil Carlebach , Willy Schmidt , Ulrich Schneider: Buchenwald a concentration camp. Reports - Pictures - Documents , Bonn 2000, p. 145.
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Kießling : Partner in the fool's paradise. The circle of friends around Noel Field and Paul Merker . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1994, ISBN 978-3-320-01857-3 , p. 134.
  4. ^ Lothar Mertens: Priest of the Klio or court chronicler of the party? Collective biographical analyzes of the GDR historians , V & R unipress, Göttingen 2006, p. 125, ISBN 3-89971-307-9 .
personal data
SURNAME Bartel, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH September 15, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Fürstenberg / Havel
DATE OF DEATH January 16, 1992
Place of death Berlin