Gerhart Eisler

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Gerhart Eisler in June 1949

Gerhart Eisler (born February 20, 1897 in Leipzig , † March 21, 1968 in Yerevan , Armenian SSR , Soviet Union ) was an Austro-German journalist and politician of the GDR . He was a member of the KPD and worked for the Comintern in China and the USA . He was the brother of the well-known composer Johannes (Hanns) Eisler (born 1898) and the temporarily leading KPD politician of the left wing, Ruth Fischer . The parents were the important Kant researcher and philosophy historian Rudolf Eisler and Ida Maria Eisler, née. Fisherman.

Life

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Gerhart Eisler grew up in Leipzig and, after the family moved in 1901, in Vienna . He served in the Austrian army in the First World War . Eisler joined the Communist Party of German-Austria when it was founded in November 1918 and took part in the revolution in Austria as a member of the Red Guard. At the end of 1919 he married his first wife, the then drama student Hede Tune (1900–1981).

In 1921 they went to Berlin , where the sister played a leading role in the KPD. Gerhart Eisler became editor of the Rote Fahne . His first marriage failed and Eisler married his sister-in-law Elli Tune in 1923, who was employed as a typist for the Soviet trade agency. Their daughter Anna was born in 1931. His second wife left him in 1933.

At the Essen party congress of the KPD in 1927 he was elected candidate for the Central Committee and at the same time for candidate for the Politburo. From 1927 to 1929 he belonged to the group of the so-called Compromisers and was actively involved in the attempted disempowerment of KPD chairman Ernst Thälmann ( Wittorf affair ) in 1928 . From 1929 to 1931 Eisler was transferred to China on probation as a representative of the Communist International . From 1933 to 1936 he was under the name Edwards as an illegal immigrant (immigrant) the representative of the Communist International in the USA.

During the Spanish Civil War he took over the management of the German freedom broadcaster 29.8 on behalf of the Comintern . At the beginning of the Second World War , Eisler was in France, where he was arrested in Paris in August 1939. He spent three years in the French internment camps Le Vernet and Les Milles near Marseille . In May 1941 he escaped to the USA as a regular immigrant. He lived in Queens and married Hilde Rothstein there (1942).

He wrote for the party press under a pseudonym. With Kurt Rosenfeld he edited the German American and was its editor-in-chief until 1946.

His sister made public allegations that he was not allowed to leave the country as planned. There were lawsuits, but not for espionage. The first trial concerned his failure to testify before the Committee against Un-American Activities . Because he had concealed his membership of the Communist Party when he entered the country in 1941, he was sentenced to three years imprisonment for passport offenses in a second trial, but was again released on bail. His sister was a witness for the prosecution. His first wife, Hede Massing, was later another prominent anti-communist and witness to the activities of the Communist International in the United States.

Eisler was arrested again in February 1948 and interned on Ellis Island for eight weeks . He evaded the threat of further arrest in May 1949 after all appeal proceedings had failed by fleeing to Europe. His wife was arrested, interned and deported. She followed her husband to the GDR. Hilde Eisler became editor-in-chief of Das Magazin in 1956 .

Gerhart Eisler (r.) At a press conference in Berlin in June 1951
Grave slab for Gerhart Eisler

In June 1949, returned Eisler as a stowaway of a Polish freighter via London to Berlin and became members of the party executive of the SED and deputy of the People's Chamber , the parliament of the GDR. In the course of the establishment of the one-party dictatorship of the SED, he informed his colleagues at the party executive committee meeting on October 4, 1949 that as Marxists they must know: “If we found a government, we will never give it up again, either through elections or by others Methods ". Until 1953 he was in the GDR government responsible for controlling the press and radio. Because of sympathizing with the opponents of SED party leader Walter Ulbricht before and during the uprising on June 17, 1953 , he was deposed, but rehabilitated in 1955.

From 1956 to 1962 Eisler was deputy chairman and then until his death chairman of the State Committee for Broadcasting of the GDR, since 1967 a member of the Central Committee of the SED . Eisler moderated the German broadcaster's Sunday talk on radio and television every week . In the GDR, several streets and schools were named after him, but they were given new names after reunification , such as today's Nossener Straße in the Berlin district of Hellersdorf .

He was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver in 1957 and in gold in 1964. In 1962 he received the Karl Marx Order .

Gerhart Eisler died on a business trip in Armenia. His urn was buried in the memorial of the socialists in the central cemetery Friedrichsfelde in Berlin-Lichtenberg .

Works

  • On the main street of world history. Articles, speeches and commentaries 1956–1968. Dietz, Berlin 1981

literature

Web links

Commons : Gerhart Eisler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ronald Friedmann: Gerhart Eisler as agent in China: Role model for the measure? , Lecture, March 29, 2008 ronald-friedmann.de
  2. ^ Nossener Strasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
  3. ↑ Honored for great services , In: Neues Deutschland , February 28, 1957, p. 1
  4. ^ New Germany, October 6, 1964, p. 5
  5. ^ State Council honors high merits , In: Neues Deutschland, February 15, 1962, p. 1
  6. ↑ on Friedmann's website in the "Documentation" section there are two previously unknown documents on Eisler in the USA, in English
personal data
SURNAME Eisler, Gerhart
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and politician, MdV
DATE OF BIRTH February 20, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH March 21, 1968
Place of death Yerevan , Armenian SSR , Soviet Union