Fritz Johne

Friedrich "Fritz" Johne (born June 14, 1911 in Ketten near Grottau , † September 14, 1989 in Dresden ) was the first ambassador of the German Democratic Republic to Cuba .

Life

Youth in Czechoslovakia

Johne was the son of a carpenter . He attended elementary school, then the community school and made a commercial apprenticeship from 1926 to 1929. Until August 1931, Johne was a commercial clerk. He joined the Czechoslovak Communist Youth Association Socialistický svaz mládeže , was sentenced to imprisonment for anti-militarist propaganda, served this and was not employed as a convicted person. Until he found a job in the butcher shop of a cooperative in 1933 , he was unemployed. From 1933 to 1935 Fritz Johne did his military service as a private in a dragoon regiment of the Československá armáda . From 1935 to 1936 Johne was an employee or cashier in the workers' consumer association in Kratzau near Reichenberg. In 1936 he became a member of the KPTsch and supported emigrants from the German Reich.

Spain fighters and internment

In August 1937 Johne went to the Second Spanish Republic . He fought initially in the Georgi Dimitrov battalion and from March 1938 in the 3rd Battalion Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk of the International Brigades . From October 1938 to February 1939 he was a political officer in the 3rd Battalion "TG Masaryk". After Franco's victory in 1939, Johne went to France with other international brigadists, where they were interned. The Camp d'internement near Saint-Cyprien was closed out of "raisons sanitaires" and the internees were brought to the Camp de Gurs on December 19, 1940 . Johne was later transferred to Camp d'Agde and the Le Vernet internment camp . In 1944 the Vichy regime handed him over to the authorities of the German Reich. He was taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp via eleven prisons of the German Reich . He was forced on the prisoners' death march from Sachsenhausen on April 21, 1945 and liberated by the Red Army on May 2, 1945 .

After 1945

In the course of 1945 Johne returned to Liberec , found a job in a law firm and held positions in the KPTsch district management in 1945/46. He was offered either to accept Czechoslovak citizenship or to be resettled, whereupon he helped organize a voluntary resettlement of Sudeten German anti-fascists in the Soviet occupation zone . His family was relocated to Pirna in the former Soviet zone in 1946 . Johne joined the SED in 1947 and became youth secretary of the SED state executive committee for Saxony-Anhalt in Halle . In August 1948, Johne became a member of the German People's Police and, as VP Inspector Political and Cultural Director of the VP State Authority of Saxony-Anhalt . After a special course in the Soviet Union in 1949/50, he became head of the training department in the staff of the training headquarters in October 1950. On October 1, 1952, he was appointed major general of the Barracked People's Police and from 1952 to 1954 he was the deputy head of the KVP for educational institutions.

From 1954 Johne was head of the Territorial Administration South of the KVP and from March 1956 head of Military District III of the National People's Army in Leipzig. In the years from 1957 to 1959 he received further training in the USSR at the Frunze Military Academy. There he received the degree of a diploma military scientist. From October 1, 1959 to May 31, 1963, he commanded the military academy of the NVA "Friedrich Engels" in Dresden , which was founded in January 1958 as the successor to Heinrich Dollwetzel .

ambassador

In 1963 Johne resigned from active service in the NVA and was the GDR's first ambassador to Cuba from 1963 to 1967, succeeding Karl Lösch , the previous head of the mission . Afterwards Johne became a member of the central management of the Committee of Anti-Fascist Resistance Fighters . At the age of 60, Johne was retired in 1971. From 1974 to 1989 he was chairman of the Dresden district committee of the GDR's anti-fascist resistance fighters.

Awards

• 1954 and 1961 Patriotic Order of Merit in silver
• 1976 Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold
• 1986 Karl Marx Order
• Gold medal for the Patriotic Order of Merit
• Battle medals "For services to people and fatherland" in gold

literature

• Helmut Müller-Enbergs :  Johne, Friedrich (Fritz) . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Klaus Froh & Rüdiger Wenzke, (ed.): The generals and admirals of the NVA: A biographical manual . 5th, through. Edition. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86153-438-9
• Torsten Diedrich, Hans Ehlert u. Rüdiger Wenzke, In the service of the party - Handbook of the armed organs of the GDR , Links Verlag, 1998, ISBN 3-86153-160-7
• Enrique Líster : Our War , Berlin 1972 (translation from Spanish).
• Ignacio Hidalgo Cisneros : Change of course , military publishing house of the GDR, Berlin 1973 (translation from Spanish).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Biography from Munzinger.Retrieved November 29, 2011
2. ↑ PEOPLE'S ARMY: The watch over the home . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 1962 ( online - 31 October 1962 ).