Günter Markscheffel

Günter Markscheffel (born November 16, 1908 in Gliwice , † July 8, 1990 in Adenau ) was a German journalist and politician of the SPD .

Life

After graduating from primary school and attending grammar schools in Gleiwitz and Hirschberg up to secondary school , Markscheffel studied at the University of Breslau . From 1928 to 1933 he was local editor of the SPD newspaper Waldenburger Bergwacht and from 1930 to 1931 he also worked as an editor for the people's newspaper in Hirschberg in Silesia . In 1927 he joined the SPD and the union.

After 1933, Markscheffel experienced the National Socialist “ seizure of power ”, initially as a political prisoner . However, he was able to escape the National Socialists by fleeing to Berlin and then offered active resistance . In the capital of the Reich he worked temporarily as the editor of the illegal newspaper Die Freiheit . From there he fled to the Saar area , where he worked again as an editor. In 1935 he emigrated to the south of France, where he earned his living as a farm worker, track worker, metal worker and locksmith. Two years later he went to Paris , where he completed an assembly apprenticeship and worked as a journalist. In Paris, he became chairman of the Young Socialist Workers . From 1938 he took on the duties as a board member of the national association of German Social Democrats in France . In 1939 he was interned . After the German army attacked France in 1940, he escaped the Nazis by fleeing to southern France . Here he worked as an assembly fitter. After the liberation he returned to Paris in 1944 and became general secretary of the “Parti Socialiste Allemand, Groupe en France”, which looked after German prisoners of war and emigrants willing to return on behalf of the SPD executive committee. At the same time he maintained contacts as a liaison with the SFIO .

In 1945 Markscheffel returned to Germany and in 1947 took the position of editor-in-chief of the SPD newspaper Die Freiheit in Mainz . From 1948 to 1957 he was the SPD district chairman in Rheinhessen and a member of the party council. From 1951 until his resignation on March 13, 1957, he was a member of the state parliament of Rhineland-Palatinate for the SPD . In the state elections in 1951 and 1955 he was elected to the state parliament via the state list of the SPD . In the second legislative term he was a member of the cultural policy committee, in the third of the main committee.

From 1951 to 1957 Markscheffel was state chairman of the German Association of Journalists in Rhineland-Palatinate . From 1957 to 1970 he was editor-in-chief of the Social Democratic Press Service , and from 1970 to 1974 personal assistant to Federal President Gustav Heinemann . He was also a member of the WDR Broadcasting Council from 1966 to 1976 . After 1974 he worked as a freelance journalist.

His personal documents, correspondence and materials from his journalistic work, his work as an SPD politician and his work as a personal advisor to Federal President Gustav Heinemann can now be found in the archive of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation .

Awards and honors

• 1971: Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• Knight's Cross of the Legion of Honor of France
• Gutenberg bust of the city of Mainz

literature

• The President of the Landtag Rhineland-Palatinate (Ed.): The representatives of the free people. The members of the Consultative State Assembly and the State Parliament of Rhineland-Palatinate from 1946 to 2015. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2016, ISBN 978-3-658-04750-4 , pp. 444–445.