Ernst Diehl (historian)

Ernst Diehl (born January 8, 1928 in Fürstenwalde (Spree) , † April 12, 2004 in Berlin ) was a German historian. In the GDR he held influential positions in the Central Committee of the SED and played a key role in almost all GDR overviews of German history. In these functions he contributed significantly to the implementation of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine in the history of the GDR.

Life

The son of a grammar school teacher grew up in Potsdam from 1930 , where his father had taken over the management of the state-owned Viktoria grammar school . During National Socialism , Diehl was a member of the Hitler Youth from 1938 and, as a member of the Volkssturm, took part in the Second World War in 1944/45 .

After graduating from high school in 1946 , Diehl began studying classical philology at the Humboldt University in Berlin . In May 1946 he joined the SED . From July to September 1946, he was also a member as a press officer of the FDJ -Landesvorstand Brandenburg on. In 1947 he switched to history and completed his studies in 1951 with a thesis on "Marx and Engels and the Italian Question" with Alfred Meusel and the state examination. At the same time Diehl continued to educate himself politically. In 1947 he completed a course at the SED state party school Brandenburg "Ernst Thälmann" in Schmerwitz and in 1949 a course at the Karl Marx party college . From 1948 to 1951 he was a member of the SED university party leadership at Humboldt University.

From 1952 Diehl was initially active as a political employee in the “Propaganda and Science Department” in the Central Committee of the SED , from 1955 as deputy head. In 1957 he became deputy head of the chair at the Institute for Social Sciences at the Central Committee of the SED ; In 1962 he took over the chair for the history of the German labor movement. In 1963 Diehl became a member of the Central Committee of the SED, to which he belonged until 1989. In July 1964 he took over the management of the Department of History of the German Labor Movement at the Institute for Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the SED and at the same time became its deputy director. He held both positions until December 1989.

In April 1967 Diehl did his doctorate with Lothar Berthold and Walter Nimtz "On the Politics of the Communist Party of Germany in 1923". In September 1967 he received a professorship with a teaching position for the history of the German labor movement at the Institute for Marxism-Leninism. In 1969 he became chairman of the newly established Council for the History of the GDR , which was supposed to coordinate the history of the GDR as the “central lead institution”. From 1971 onwards, he became a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in 1973 . He belonged to the Presidium of the Historians' Society of the GDR , which he helped to establish as a member of an initiative committee (1953), and from 1977 to the Presidium of the National Committee of Historians of the GDR . In 1990 Diehl took early retirement. From 1993 he was a member of the Leibniz Society in Berlin .

Diehl has received many awards in the GDR . He received the Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze (1963), silver (1978) and gold (1988), the National Prize of the GDR , 1st class in the collective (1966) and 2nd class (1978) and the banner of work , level I ( 1974 and 1987). In 1985 the Humboldt University awarded him an honorary doctorate

tomb

He is buried in the socialist cemetery of the Friedrichsfelde central cemetery.

Act

Ernst Diehl was one of the most influential historians in the GDR. While his own field of work lay in the history of the German November Revolution and the development of the KPD , whose role as a "revolutionary fighting party" he emphasized, he worked primarily as the head of author and editor collectives, as a collaborator and author on almost all GDR overviews of the German Story with. These include the outline of the history of the German labor movement (1963), the eight-volume history of the German labor movement published in 1966 , which was an official and binding view of history until 1976, and the 'outline' of class struggle, tradition, socialism for the 'history of the German people up to the design of the developed socialist society in the GDR ”, where he headed the editorial collective. He was co-editor of the German History (1982ff.), Which was laid out in twelve volumes . In addition to Kurt Hager , Rolf Dlubek and later Johannes Hörnig , Diehl is assigned a central role in science policy in the implementation of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine in the history of the GDR.

Publications

• and Lothar Berthold (ed.): Revolutionary German party programs. Dietz, Berlin 1964.
• as the leader of the collective: class struggle, tradition, socialism. From the beginnings of the history of the German people to the shaping of the developed socialist society in the GDR. Outline of German history . German publisher d. Wiss, Berlin 1974.
• (Ed.): History of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (outline) . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1978.
• (Ed.): German history in twelve volumes . Berlin 1982-89.
• (Ed.): 750 Years of Berlin, 1237 - 1987. Theses. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3320009664 .
• (Ed.): History of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3320009273 .

literature

• Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk : Legitimation of a new state. Party workers on the historical front. History in the Soviet Zone / GDR 1945 to 1961 . Ch. Links, Berlin 1997.
• Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk:  Diehl, Ernst . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Lothar Mertens : Lexicon of the GDR historians. Biographies and bibliographies on the historians from the German Democratic Republic . KG Saur, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-598-11673-X .
• Martin Sabrow : The Dictation of Consensus: Historical Studies in the GDR 1949-1969 . Oldenbourg, Munich 2001.
• Walter Schmidt : Obituary Ernst Diehl . In: Meeting reports of the Leibniz Society 74 (2004), pp. 29–31. ( PDF )