Curt Wach

Wilhelm Pieck (left), Curt Wach (middle) and Hermann Henselmann (2nd from right) visiting the children's department store in Berlin , Karl-Marx-Allee (1954).

Curt Wach (born February 5, 1906 in Gersdorf bei Hainichen , † June 18, 1974 ) was a German politician ( KPD / SED ). He was Chairman of the Potsdam District Council and Minister for Trade and Supply of the GDR .

Life

Wach, son of a farm laborer, attended elementary school and learned the trade of machine fitter . He worked in this profession as well as a worker in a paper mill and in a brick factory . In 1920 he became a member of the German Metalworkers' Association . In 1927 he joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and was a works council in the Framo plants in Frankenberg . From 1928 he was an instructor in the KPD work area Hainichen. Wach attended the KPD party school in Thalheim and was a speaker there. From 1932 he worked as political leader of the KPD sub-district Riesa and was a member of the secretariat of the KPD district leadership in Saxony .

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , Wach took part in the communist resistance . He was arrested in May 1933 and sentenced in April 1934 to 21 months in prison by the Second Criminal Senate of the Dresden Higher Regional Court. After his prison sentence in Waldheim prison had expired , he was taken to Sachsenburg concentration camp and only released in 1936. He worked as a naturopath and as a lathe operator. Wach was arrested again in January 1945, but was able to flee in March 1945.

1945/1946 Wach was mayor of Hainichen. He became a member of the SED in 1946 and was temporarily secretary of the SED state leadership for Upper Lusatia . From 1946 to 1950 he was district administrator or district administrator of the Dippoldiswalde district , from 1950 to July 1952 first chairman of the State Commission for State Control Brandenburg and from 1952 to 1953 chairman of the council of the Potsdam district .

From February 1953 to July 1959 Wach was Minister for Trade and Supply of the GDR and was a member of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers from November 1954 to December 1958. In 1959 he retired for health reasons.

Awards

• Patriotic Order of Merit in Silver (1957)
• Medal for fighters against fascism 1933 to 1945 (1958)

literature

• Ursula Hoffmann-Lange: The changes in the social structure of the Council of Ministers of the GDR 1949-1969 . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1971, ISBN 3-7700-0281-4 , pp. 79 and 100.
• Gabriele Baumgartner: Awake, Kurt [sic!]. In: Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990. Volume 2: Maassen - Zylla. KG Saur, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-598-11177-0 , p. 968.
• Martin Broszat et al. (Ed.): SBZ manual: State administrations, parties, social organizations and their executives in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany 1945–1949 . 2nd Edition. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-486-55262-7 , p. 1049.
• Friederike Sattler: Economic order in transition. Politics, organization and function of the KPD / SED in the state of Brandenburg during the establishment of the central planned economy in the Soviet Zone / GDR 1945–52 . Lit, Münster 2002, ISBN 3-8258-6321-2 , p. 968.
• Andreas Herbst :  Wake up, Curt . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Winner of the "Medal for Fighters Against Fascism" . In: Neues Deutschland , September 4, 1958, p. 3.