Günter Erxleben

Günter Erxleben (born April 15, 1909 in Berlin ; † March 29, 2005 ibid) was a German journalist and publishing director in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). From 1951 to 1953 he was editor-in-chief of the Tribüne and from 1953 to 1969 head of Tribüne-Verlag .

Life

Erxleben, the son of a domestic worker and a railroad worker, completed a commercial apprenticeship after elementary school , but then worked as a construction worker and film copier. In 1924 he got involved with the Friends of Nature and in 1925 joined the Central Association of Employees (ZdA) and the Communist Youth Association of Germany (KJVD). In 1930 he became a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). He was an employee and instructor, most recently a member of the KJVD district management Berlin-Brandenburg.

After the takeover of the Nazis in 1933 supported Erxleben the KPD also in hiding, was arrested in October of the same year and in January 1934 for "conspiracy to treason sentenced" to two and a half years in prison, for the most part in Emslandlager Börgermoor had to spend. He was released from prison in May 1936.

From 1936 to 1942 he was employed as a construction worker and then as a film technician at Eruka-Schmalfilm Rassow & Co in Berlin-Weißensee . In autumn 1939 he was imprisoned again for a few weeks. In 1943 he was forcibly recruited into the German Wehrmacht's 999 Penal Battalion . As "unworthy of defense" he was a member of a medical company in Greece and took part in the resistance struggle. In May 1945 he became a British prisoner of war from which he was released in 1947.

Erxleben returned to Germany, settled in the eastern sector of his hometown and in the same year became a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB). From 1947 he was employed as an editor at the FDGB newspaper Tribüne , whose editor-in-chief he became in 1951 (successor to Jacob Walcher ). On September 3, 1950, he was elected at the 3rd FDGB Congress as a member of the Secretariat and on August 1, 1952 as a member of the newly formed Presidium of the FDGB Federal Executive. In March 1953 he was recalled from this post. According to some sources, the cause was a misprint in the stands when the news of Stalin's death was received. Nevertheless, Erxleben remained a member of the FDGB Federal Executive Board until the 6th FDGB Congress in November 1963 and was head of the Tribüne Verlag in 1953 , which he remained until his retirement in 1969.

Awards

• 1969 Order Banner of Labor (GDR)
• 1979 Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold
• 1985 Fritz Heckert Gold Medal

Fonts (selection)

• Hans Burckhardt, Günter Erxleben: Penal Division 999. Experiences and reports from the anti-fascist resistance struggle. German military publisher , Berlin 1965.
• Hans Burckhardt, Günter Erxleben, Kurt Nettball: The one with the blue glow. About the anti-fascist resistance in the 999 formations of the fascist German Wehrmacht (1942–1945). 2nd corrected edition. Military publishing house of the German Democratic Republic , Berlin 1986 DNB 126335257 .

literature

• Heinz Germany , (head of the collective of authors): History of the FDGB - Chronicle 1945-1982 , Verlag Tribüne Berlin 1985.
• Andreas Herbst :  Günter Erxleben . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Gunter Holzweißig: Mass media in the GDR. In: Jürgen Wilke (ed.), Media History of the Federal Republic of Germany , Cologne et al. 1999.

Web links

• Literature by and about Günter Erxleben in the catalog of the German National Library
• Günter Erxleben in www.berlin.friedparks.de (accessed on November 19, 2017).