Erich Funk

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Erich Funk (born September 17, 1903 in Königsberg i. Pr. , † July 4, 1967 in Berlin ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism and SED functionary in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). From 1951 to 1959 he was head of the main human resources and training department and deputy to the state secretary for internal affairs in the Ministry of the Interior .

Life

Resistance fighters against National Socialism

Funk, the son of a maid and a port worker, became a construction worker and iron weaver in Königsberg after graduating from elementary school in 1918. In 1919 he became a member of the German Transport Workers' Association , in 1920 of the Communist Youth Association of Germany (KJVD) and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), in 1925 of the Red Front Fighters Association (RFB), the Red Aid Germany (RHD), the International Workers Aid (IAH) and in 1929 the German Farmers' Association . After some functions in the KJVD, Funk became a central figure in the Königsberg RFB. After group leader, platoon leader and department head in the Red Youth Front, he became a Gauleiter of the RFB in East Prussia in 1926 , an instructor in the RFB Reichsleitung in 1928 and a member of the East Prussia district leadership in 1929.

In addition, Funk was a functionary of the KPD from 1929 and from 1931 to 1933 Gauleiter of the unified association of agricultural and forest workers. In 1931 he was elected to the Königsberg city council for the KPD. In March 1933 he was to run for the KPD in the elections for the Prussian state parliament and the Reichstag . After the National Socialists came to power and communist activities were banned, this was no longer possible. Funk also lost his mandate in Königsberg. He supported the communist organizations and trade unions also in illegality and was arrested in the spring of 1933.

In April 1933, Funk was interned in so-called protective custody in Quedenau until September 1933 in the Sonnenburg concentration camp and was then released. However, only six weeks later he was arrested again and held in Ballupönen penal camp. In February 1934 the Königsberg Higher Regional Court sentenced him to 15 months in prison for “preparing for high treason” , which he served in Wartenburg prison in June 1935 . In 1937 he was arrested for the third time and again sentenced by the People's Court to 15 years in prison for “preparing for high treason”. Until the end of the Second World War in 1945 he was imprisoned in the Wartenburg and Waldheim prisons in Saxony .

SED functionary in the GDR

After his release from prison, Funk's health was severely restricted, but until December 1948 he was at times office director and head of personnel in the Bernau district administration office near Berlin and head of social security in Beeskow . In 1946, after the forced unification of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the KPD in the Soviet zone of occupation in Germany, he became a member of the SED. In 1948 he moved to the headquarters of the SED in East Berlin and became head of the cadre department of the party executive and 2nd secretary of the operating group in the SED party executive.

From February 1949, Funk became an instructor in the personnel policy department of the Central Secretariat of the SED and there headed the trade union subdivision. In August 1950 he rose to head the entire cadre department in the SED Central Committee and was responsible for personnel selection in the GDR Ministry of the Interior (MdI) and the Central Commission for State Control (ZKSK) at the GDR Council of Ministers .

In 1951, Funk was checked in the course of a GDR-wide party purge and was temporarily released, but survived this and in September 1951 became head of the main personnel and training department and deputy to the State Secretary for Internal Affairs in the MdI. In 1954 he became a candidate and in 1958 a member of the Central Revision Commission of the SED (ZRK). In 1958, he moved to the State Secretariat for Local Councils of the MdI as head of the personnel department.

In 1959, Funk was officially disempowered because of "insisting on the old, administrative, bureaucratic working style" and transferred to the archive. The actual cause was criticism of the politics of party and state leader Walter Ulbricht expressed by Funk . From 1959 Funk was head of the archive in the Ministry of Finance and from 1962 head of the archive for state documents in the office of the Council of Ministers.

Funk's grave is located in the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery in the Pergolenweg section .

Honors

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Erich Funk at www.berlin.friedparks.de (accessed on February 11, 2019)
personal data
SURNAME Funk, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German anti-fascist resistance fighter and SED functionary in the GDR
DATE OF BIRTH 17th September 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigsberg i. Pr.
DATE OF DEATH 4th July 1967
Place of death Berlin