Ernst Müller (trade unionist, 1915)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ernst Müller (born February 4, 1915 in Nuremberg ; † June 19, 1966 ) was a German communist and trade unionist. After World War II, he was one of the leading functionaries of the GDR unified FDGB for some time .

Life

Müller was born in 1915 in the Franconian metropolis of Nuremberg as the son of a working class family. After elementary school, he completed an apprenticeship as a typesetter, and in 1929 he joined the Association of German Book Printers. In 1931 Müller also joined the KJVD . After all communist organizations were banned in 1933, Müller continued his political activity illegally, which resulted in an arrest. In a criminal trial, he was initially sentenced to two years in prison for preparing for high treason , followed by a three-year stay in the Dachau concentration camp . In 1940 Müller was drafted into the Wehrmacht for rehabilitation. In the course of the war he deserted on the Eastern Front in 1943 and defected to the Red Army. While in Soviet captivity, Müller went to an anti-fascist school and was able to return to Germany in 1945. From the beginning, Müller's place of work was Berlin, where he became a member of the KPD after it was re- established. However, Müller was mainly involved in the newly founded unified Free German Trade Union Federation , in which he initially worked in the Berlin FDGB state executive as an employee of the youth department. The youth sector continued to be decisive for Müller for the next few years. In the first election of the FDGB federal executive, which took place on February 11, 1946, Müller was elected to this executive committee as a so-called youth secretary. He was also responsible for the links between the FDGB and the founding youth organization Free German Youth . As a result, he was a participant in the 1st FDJ Parliament in June 1946 in Meissen, where he also appeared as a speaker in the first FDJ Central Council and was elected as a member. In 1947, the FDGB sent Müller as a delegate to the 1st German People's Congress . At the 2nd German People's Congress he was elected as a member of the FDGB in the 1st German People's Council. From 1946 to May 1949, Müller initially headed the youth department within the FDGB federal board. He then took over the Department of Culture and Education, which in August 1950 was renamed Cultural Mass Work. Müller headed this department until 1951 and, thanks to the financial support of the FDGB for culture, developed into one of the most important cultural officials in the GDR for some time. At that time, 15% of the membership fees of the union members were used for the so-called FDGB culture fund, which was not without controversy. In March 1950, Müller was appointed deputy chairman of the board of trustees of the GDR's cultural fund . This board of trustees, which was under the direction of the writer Bernhard Kellermann , was a corporation under public law and was supposed to decide on the use of special taxes, the so-called cultural penny. Among other things, it was intended to decisively promote cultural work in rural areas. At the 3rd Federal Congress of the FDGB in September 1950, Müller was re-elected to the federal executive committee of the union. Within the board of directors he belonged to the nine-person secretariat and thus to the top management of the FDGB. Under Müller's leadership and the term cultural mass work z. B. subsequently set up and financially supported pioneer camps by sponsor companies. In the spring of 1951 there were working agreements between the FDGB and other mass organizations and cultural institutions such as the DSF , the German Sports Committee , the Kulturbund , the FDJ , the Deutsche Volksbühne, the German Writers' Association and the Association of Visual Artists in order to accommodate cultural work between the individual organizations Coordinate union leadership. After Kurt Helbig took over the cultural department in 1952, Müller was given the office of secretary for western labor in March 1952. But he quickly found himself overwhelmed in this position and was replaced by Kurt Kühn in August of the same year . Müller then took up a degree in German and Slavic studies. He later worked as an employee of the SED district leadership in Berlin before he died in 1966 at the age of 55.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Neues Deutschland from June 18, 1950 p. 5
  2. ↑ Neues Deutschland, September 6, 1950, p. 4
  3. ^ New Germany of April 12, 1951, p. 4

literature

  • Annette Schumann Cultural work in the socialist enterprise: trade union educational practice in the Soviet Zone / GDR 1946 to 1970 Böhlau 2006 ISBN 9783412027063

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Müller, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German trade unionist (FDGB), MdV
DATE OF BIRTH February 4, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Nuremberg
DATE OF DEATH June 19, 1966