Franz Lange (politician)

Franz Lange (born December 18, 1904 in Berlin ; † October 27, 1985 there ) was a German communist resistance fighter against National Socialism and a politician ( SED ). He was a member of the Second German People's Council of the Soviet Zone and the Provisional People's Chamber of the GDR .

Life

Lange, became a member of the KJVD in 1921 , joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1926 and in 1928 worked for the USSR's commercial agency in Berlin. In the Kreuzberg district he organized the " proletarian self-protection ". Shortly after the National Socialists " seized power " , he was taken into protective custody for several months and spent several months in the Sonnenburg concentration camp . Arrested again in 1934, the jury court in Berlin sentenced him to four years in prison, which he spent in the Tegel prison and in the Emsländer Moor . In June 1937 he was released and was under special control as "unworthy of defense". Nevertheless, he took up contacts with anti-fascists again. In the war years he found a connection with the illegal Berlin party organization. He met several times with Anton Saefkow conspiratorially and drafted leaflet texts for the establishment of an anti-fascist-democratic Germany. After Anton Saefkow and the other comrades in the operational management of the KPD fell into the hands of the Gestapo in 1944 , he hoped to remain undiscovered. On April 9, 1945 - a week before the Red Army's struggle for Berlin began - Gestapo officers arrested him and locked him in the Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, which had already been half destroyed. Its liberation took place on May 2, 1945 by Soviet soldiers.

He became active again in the KPD and headed the anti-fascist committee in Berlin-Britz . He held the first political training evenings in a hall of the tram station in Britz and became mayor of Berlin-Britz. In October 1946 he was elected to the district assembly of Berlin-Neukölln with the mandate of the SED .

According to the order No. 176 of the SMAD of December 18, 1945, which regulated the reconstruction of the consumer cooperatives in the Eastern Zone, the individual cooperatives in the Soviet sector merged on May 11, 1946 to form the Association of Berlin Consumer Cooperatives (VBK) and appointed Franz Lange Chair of the VBK. Lange was replaced in this role by Charlotte Lewandowski in 1951 .

In May 1949 he became a member of the Second German People's Council and in October 1949 the Provisional People's Chamber. In the Provisional People's Chamber he was a member of the economic committee. In 1950 he attended the party college "Karl Marx" . He later held responsible positions in the Ministry of Foreign Trade , most recently as deputy head of department at the VEB Rationalization and Computing Center Foreign Trade in Berlin.

Lange was married and has two daughters. He died at the age of 80.

Awards

• 1971 Patriotic Order of Merit in silver

literature

• Martin Broszat et al. (Ed.): SBZ manual: State administrations, parties, social organizations and their executives in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany 1945-1949 . Oldenbourg, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-486-55262-7 , p. 962.
• Willi Engels : waiter, cook, communist. Memories . Lukas-Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86732-209-6 , p. 239.

See also

• List of the members of the 2nd People's Council of the Soviet Zone
• List of members of the Provisional People's Chamber

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Freed from the cell in the Gestapo headquarters - Willi Zahlbaum wrote down the experiences of Franz Lange . In: Neues Deutschland , April 6, 1985, p. 9.
2. ^ The committees of the People's Chamber . In: Neues Deutschland , November 11, 1949, p. 2.
3. ↑ High awards . In: Berliner Zeitung , October 6, 1971, p. 8.
4. ^ Obituary notice in the Berliner Zeitung of November 14, 1985, p. 8.