Erich Rinka

Erich Rinka (born December 19, 1902 in Lübbenau , † December 17, 1983 in East Berlin ) was a German photographer and communist . He was one of the most important worker photographers in Germany in the 1920s.

Life

Erich Rinka was born in 1902 into a Sorbian working-class family of five and grew up in Lübbenau, where he attended the boys' school. After finishing school he began an apprenticeship as a printer and moved to Berlin in 1921. Two years later Rinka joined the Communist Youth of Germany (KJD) and in 1928 the Communist Party of Germany . In the same year he became a works council in a book printing company.

From 1930 Rinka was head of the workers photographers of Greater Berlin , from 1931 full-time Reich secretary of the workers photographers in Germany . In the autumn of 1930 he also headed a delegation of Soviet workers' photographers. He also created picture collages for the AIZ . In 1932 Rinka became head of the International Bureau of Workers Photographers . After the National Socialists seized power , Rinka was arrested in April 1933 for illegal activities. He managed to escape, however, and worked for the KPD's central committee . In March 1934 Rinka was arrested in Johanngeorgenstadt and sentenced to two and a half years in prison on June 18, 1935 at the Dresden Higher Regional Court. After his release from the Berlin-Plötzensee prison , Erich Rinka worked in a Berlin art studio. Because of his political attitude, Rinka, who was actually considered "unworthy of defense", was forcibly recruited into Penal Division 999 in February 1943 , but deserted to Prague before the end of the war .

After the end of the war, Rinka returned to Berlin. On behalf of the Brandenburg state leadership of the Communist Party, he founded a local KPD group in Lübbenau and also took over the picture and feature pages of the KPD newspaper Volkswille , which was later renamed Märkische Volksstimme . He later became editor-in-chief of broadcasting at SMA and later editor-in-chief of the Berlin-Adlershof television center , which later became the German television broadcaster . Erich Rinka lived alternately in Berlin and in his hometown Lübbenau.

Works

• Photography in the class struggle. A worker photographer remembers , Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1981
• Heinrich Goeres: Black Pump journey of discovery. Photographed by Erich Rinka, Kongress-Verlag, Berlin 1958

proof

1. ↑ Jürgen Matschie: Erich Rinka - The worker photographer from the Spreewald . Domowina-Verlag, Bautzen 2007.
2. ^ Karl-Ernst Schleisser: Famous Lübbenauer. In: History of the City of Lübbenau - 20th Century. City of Lübbenau (ed.), P. 275f.
3. ↑ Who was who in the GDR. Federal foundation for coming to terms with the SED dictatorship , accessed on November 1, 2017 .