Else Merke

Else Merke 1966 (2nd from right)

Else Merke born Janke (* 15. June 1920 in Stargard , † 6. March 2005 in Schenkenberg ) was an official of the GDR - Block Party DBD and the GDR mass organization DFD temporarily a member of the Council of State and the People's Chamber deputies .

Life

Born the daughter of a small farmer, Else Merke completed an apprenticeship in agriculture from 1935 to 1939 after attending primary school. Then she worked as a farm worker on her parents' farm until the end of the war. Merkes family was from Stargard sold . She found her new home in Döbbelin near Stendal. At first Else Merke continued to work on her parents' farm. In 1951 Else Merke, married to Helmut Merke since 1940 , moved from Döbbelin to Schenkenberg near Delitzsch. The Merke couple bought a new farm here. Meanwhile politically trained, Else Merke soon became the local spokesperson and campaigned for collectivization. The 2nd party conference of the SED in July 1952 and the expectations of the prominent functionary were the last decisive factor in founding one of the first LPG in the republic on August 16, 1952 . This was initially created as Type I with an initial area of ​​58  hectares and was named " October 7th ". Else Merkes husband Helmut Merke became the first LPG chairman. Else Merke initially headed the field cultivation brigade at LPG and formed one of the first LPG women's committees. The Merke couple became part of the political myth of the LPG founders and they received nationwide attention through their initiative. In 1966 Merke passed the skilled worker examination to become a cattle breeder and worked as a foreman in her LPG until 1972. In 1967 and 1968, she completed a special degree for women at the agricultural engineering school in Dahlen-Döbeln, which she completed as an agricultural engineer. From 1972 she headed the department for culture and social affairs at LPG Schenkenberg, ultimately also in order to be able to pursue her political offices.

politics

Until 1945 Else Merke was not politically active. In order to prove her political reliability as a displaced person, she joined the newly founded DBD in 1948 together with her husband Helmut Merke, who had returned from captivity. In the Stendal district, both were among the co-founders of the local district association. After a six-month course, Else Merke was elected district chairman. From 1950 she became more involved in the DFD, the advocacy group for women in the GDR. She initially became a state instructor for the DFD for Saxony-Anhalt. A little later, Else Merke also became a member of the national executive committee of the DFD. The increasing popularity of the Merke couple soon had an impact on Else Merke's political career; she was co-opted into the People's Chamber as a member of the DBD in August 1953 and took part in the World Women's Congress in Copenhagen that same year, where she also gave a speech. In the following years she got into other political offices. In 1963 Merke became a member of the State Council as a representative of the DBD, in which she remained until 1971. Also in 1963 she became a member of the party executive committee of the DBD as well as the presidium of the DBD. Else Merke remained in the presidium until 1982, in the party executive until 1990. In 1964, the DFD members elected her deputy chairwoman, who she remained until 1990. 1986 Else Merke no longer ran for the Volkskammer election.

In the course of her career, Merke received a number of orders and state awards from the GDR, including the Clara Zetkin Medal (1958), the Patriotic Order of Merit in Silver (1965) and the Star of Friendship of Nations (1985).

literature

• Theresia Bauer: Block Party and Agrarian Revolution from Above. The Democratic Peasant Party of Germany, 1948–1963. Oldenbourg, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-486-56703-9 ( Studies on Contemporary History 64), (At the same time: Munich, Univ., Diss., 1998).
• Siegfried Kuntsche, Helmut Müller-Enbergs :  Note, Else . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Rita Pawlowski: Our women stand by their husbands. Women in the People's Chamber of the GDR 1950–1989. A biographical manual. trafo, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-89626-652-1 .
• How we started From the democratic land reform to the victory of the socialist production relations in agriculture. Memories. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1985.

Web links

Commons : Else Merke  - collection of images, videos and audio files