Social democratic working group of former political prisoners
The Social Democratic Working Group of Former Political Prisoners in the Soviet Occupation Zone / GDR (AEPH) was an association of victims of the Soviet occupation and the SED dictatorship close to the SPD .
history
The working group was founded in 1958 by former prisoners who had been imprisoned in the Soviet special camp No. 4 , in the Bautzner “ Gelben Elend ”. In the Federal Republic they founded the circle to educate the West German public about the injustice in the Soviet occupation zone and the early GDR. For 58 years until 2016, the working group met annually, cultivated contacts and influenced political and communal life so that the time after 1945 would not be forgotten. With that he took over some functions of the east office of the SPD after its closure in 1971.
In a letter from former political prisoners to the Central Committee of the SED on March 31, 1971, the magnitude of these victims is mentioned. According to this, for the years 1948-50 alone, there is talk of 200,000 Social Democrats who were disciplined, persecuted or driven to flee in one way or another by the SED regime; Over 5000 Social Democrats languished in the communist dungeons for many years - 400 lost their lives for their political convictions.
In 2016, after a long period of cooperation, the merger with the victims of the Nazi dictatorship to form the Working Group of Formerly Persecuted Social Democrats (AVS) took place.
Chairperson
- Dieter Rieke (1925-2009)
- Hans-Joachim Helwig-Wilson (1931–2009) (from 2001)
- Lothar Otter (1931–2016) (from 2010)
literature
- Johannes Osterhelt: Chronicle of the working group of former political prisoners in the former GDR. Dresden 2018.
- Dieter Rieke (Ed.): Social Democrats as Victims in the Fight against the Red Dictatorship: Working Materials for Political Education. (pdf, 322 kB) Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Bonn, 1994 .
- Bernd Faulenbach : Arno Wend, in: Karl Wilhelm Fricke, Peter Steinbach, Johannes Tuchel (eds.): Opposition and resistance in the GDR. Political images of life. Munich 2002, pp. 90-94.
- Andreas Malycha : The SED. History of their Stalinization 1946–1953. Paderborn 2000.
- Wolfgang Buschfort : Parties in the Cold War. The east offices of the SPD, CDU and FDP. Berlin 2000.
Web links
- Maximilian Heidrich: Saxon state commissioner for coming to terms with the SED dictatorship: Chronicle against forgetting. (pdf, 138 kB) Saxon State Parliament, August 28, 2018 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dieter Rieke, 1994, p. 6.