Georg Krausz

Georg Krausz on February 17, 1961 at his opening address in the exhibition center at Berlin's Friedrichstrasse station on the VDJ's exhibition against colonialism "The day began - freedom and independence for all peoples"

Georg Krausz (born March 2, 1894 in Humenné ; † March 18, 1973 in East Berlin ) was an Austro-German journalist and politician ( KPD / SED ). During the Nazi era , he resisted National Socialism .

Life

Krausz, whose parents were Austro-Hungarian Jews, was the son of a professor. After completing his school career, he first studied chemistry, then switched to German, Romance studies, psychology and art history. During his studies in Hungary he joined the left-wing socialist student movement. At the First World War he took from 1914 to 1918 as a soldier of the Joint Army part. After the end of the war in 1918, he worked as a study assistant at a secondary school.

Political activity

Krausz he took part in the council revolution in Hungary and belonged to the revolutionary directory in Northern Hungary. In Hungary and later in Czechoslovakia he was a co-founder of the communist parties there and worked as an editor for workers' newspapers in Budapest , Pressburg and Prague . As a representative of the youth, he was a member of the first Central Committee of the CPC. Because of his political activities, he was arrested in Czechoslovakia in 1921, expelled from the country and transferred to Austria. He was taken into political custody in Vienna and moved to Berlin after his release . As a member of the KPD, he became editor for foreign policy at the Rote Fahne in 1922 . From 1929 to 1933 he worked for various communist newspapers and magazines.

Resistance to National Socialism

After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, Krausz went underground and was a member of the district leadership of the KPD in Berlin. Krausz was arrested in 1936 and sentenced to four years in prison for “preparing for high treason ” . Krausz spent his imprisonment in the Berlin-Tegel , Plötzensee , Brandenburg and Waldheim prisons . From there, Krausz was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp as a “political Jew” in 1941 and was given prisoner number 3732. In the Buchenwald concentration camp he was a member of the conspiratorial camp resistance. In April 1945 he was liberated by US Army troops. Afterwards he was editor of the Buchenwalder Nachrichten and headed the agitation and propaganda department of the communist party archive in the liberated concentration camp .

After the end of the war

On May 25, 1945, the former Buchenwald prisoners Robert Zeiler , his brother, Georg Rittmann and Krausz set out on their journey from Weimar to Berlin, where they wanted to help repatriate the Brandenburg and Berlin prisoners. Due to the desolate road conditions, the car stopped in Potsdam on May 29, 1945 and the former Buchenwald prisoners were arrested by an NKVD officer and taken to Cecilienhof Palace . The arrested persons were later interrogated by Soviet officers at Villa Ingenheim and suspected of American espionage. Georg Krausz, who was able to identify himself as a member of the KPD and as a member of the communist camp resistance in Buchenwald concentration camp, was held up to the following by the interrogating Soviet officer: “You Jew? I think Jews are all dead in Germany ?! ”and further“ You just need to tell me that the Americans allowed you to print communist party cards ”.

Special camp inmate

Krausz was taken to special camp No. 5 Ketschendorf , moved to special camp No. 6 in Jamlitz at the beginning of 1947 and from there in April 1947 to special camp No. 1 in Mühlberg . Thereafter, Krausz was imprisoned in special camp No. 2 Buchenwald . The former beech forest inmates Walter Bartel and Wilhelm Pieck tried unsuccessfully to find their friend Georg Krausz. Krausz himself repeatedly presented his case to the Soviet investigation commission, which appeared periodically in the camp. Each time he was told that there was nothing that could be done for his release. Finally, Krausz was able to send a conspiratorial message to Wilhelm Pieck in Berlin, who immediately tried to get his friend released from the Soviet military administration. Krausz was not released, but brought to Torgau at the end of April 1948 , where he was identified by the former beech forest inmate Robert Siewert and only released in early May 1948.

SED functionary

Then he was the main advisor in the press, radio and advertising department at the SED party executive. From 1950 to 1968 he was editor, foreign correspondent and later deputy editor-in-chief of the SED central organ New Germany . In this capacity he reported in 1951 as a special correspondent on the Warsaw officers' trial, which was part of the Stalinist show trials. Krausz was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1957 by the Karl Marx University of Leipzig . Since then, Krausz has held the title of Dr. hc From 1957 to 1967 he was chairman of the Association of the German Press and Association of Journalists of the GDR (VDJ) and then until 1973 member of the central board of the VDJ. He was also Vice President of the International Union of Journalists. From 1960 he was a member of the Committee for Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, from 1961 also a member of the Presidium of the League for Friendship of Nations .

tomb

Krausz retired in 1968 and died five years later in Berlin. He is buried in the “Pergolenweg” grave complex at the Socialist Memorial at the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery in Berlin-Lichtenberg .

Between 1976 and 1991 the 3rd Polytechnic High School in Berlin-Niederschönhausen (today's "Elementary School in Hasengrund") was named after him.

Works

• What about all-German free elections? , 1954
• Thoughts and experiences of a revolutionary journalist , Association of Journalists of the GDR, Berlin 1974.

Awards

• Patriotic Order of Merit in silver (May 6, 1955), in gold (1969)
• Labor Banner (1959)
• Karl Marx Order (1964)

literature

• Hermann Weber : The change in German communism. The Stalinization of the KPD in the Weimar Republic . Volume 2. European Publishing House, Frankfurt am Main 1969, p. 195.
• Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990. Volume 1: Abendroth - Lyr. KG Saur, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-598-11176-2 , p. 435.
• Harry Stein, Buchenwald Memorial (ed.): Buchenwald Concentration Camp 1937–1945 , volume accompanying the permanent historical exhibition, Wallstein, Göttingen 1999, ISBN 978-3-89244-222-6 .
• Karin Hartewig: Back. The history of the Jewish communists in the GDR . Böhlau, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-412-02800-2 , p. 86f (habilitation thesis Universität Essen 2000, 646 pages).
• Andreas Weigelt: Retraining camps do not exist: On the history of the Soviet special camp Jamlitz 1945–1947 . Brandenburg State Center for Civic Education - Foundation for coming to terms with the SED dictatorship, Potsdam 2001, ISBN 3-932502-29-9 ( PDF file, 1.46 MB ), there: Short biography Georg Krausz, p. 178.
• Petra Haustein, Anne Kaminsky, Volkhard Knigge , Bodo Ritscher (eds.): Instrumentalization, repression, reappraisal - the Soviet special camps in social perception from 1945 to today . Commissioned by the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation and the Foundation to Process the SED dictatorship, Wallstein, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-8353-0051-2 .
• Bernd-Rainer Barth , Andreas Herbst :  Krausz, Georg . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German Communists, Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Karin Hartewig: Returned. The history of the Jewish communists in the GDR. Böhlau, Cologne 2000, p. 369.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Andreas Weigelt: Retraining camps do not exist: On the history of the Soviet special camp Jamlitz 1945–1947. Potsdam 2001, p. 178.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Fascists in the GDR and anti-fascist resistance / anti-fascist committees - Robert Zeiler's late return home ( Memento of the original from May 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Report by Robert Zeiler, published in the GDR magazine Antifaschistischer Resistance fighters , issue 12/89.