Gert Caden

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Gert Caden , actually Gerd Kaden , (born June 10, 1891 in Berlin ; † September 9, 1990 in Dresden ) was a German artist , agent of the KPD , member of the Provisional People's Chamber of the GDR and agent of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) and the Soviet secret service KGB .

Life

youth

Caden, the son of a Prussian lieutenant general , attended after secondary school in Leipzig , where he student of Fedor Flinzer was, and the High School from 1907 to 1909, the cadet school in Leipzig, where he became the Corps at the Saxon royal court in Dresden belonged. From 1909 to 1914 he was a soldier in the Royal Saxon 4th Infantry Regiment in Bautzen and was promoted to lieutenant in 1910 . In the First World War Caden lost two brothers and was at the end of the war Western Front used. In 1919 he was demobilized with the rank of first lieutenant . Caden claimed to have become a pacifist because of his experiences in World War I and turned to painting .

In 1919, Caden began studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden . In 1919 he married the daughter of the banker and art collector Felix Bondi, Lala. The marriage was divorced in 1920. In 1920 he went to Munich and continued his studies at the Munich Art Academy .

In 1921 Caden moved back to Berlin, adopted the stage name Gert Caden , and exhibited for the first time. During this time he made relief pictures and was strongly influenced by international constructivists of the time. In the same year he married Maja Loewe. The second marriage ended in divorce in 1928. After temporary stays in Munich and Vienna , Caden had great success in 1925 with advertising posters for US American reviews. From 1925 to 1928 he retired to a village in Saxony and then lived again in Berlin. In 1928 he married Ilse Hermann. This marriage also failed after a few years.

Agent of the KPD

At the end of the 1920s, Caden turned to Marxism and attended lectures at the Marxist Workers' School (MASCH), made friends with the KPD functionaries Ernst Schneller and Hans Kippenberger , and in 1930 joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), which it initially did kept secret. From the beginning, Caden worked under the direction of Hans Kippenberger in the secret, so-called anti - military apparatus (AM apparatus), the KPD's illegal intelligence service that existed until 1937, and was given the code name Cello . After the takeover of the Nazis and the banning of the KPD increased Caden its commitment and supported the party in the illegality.

In 1936, Caden switched to the defense apparatus of the KPD under Hermann Nuding and became a covert member of the German Society for Defense Policy and Defense Sciences , was covertly a member of the Stahlhelm, Association of Frontline Soldiers , and had access to information from the Stahlhelmführung. After 1933 he was able to expand his information connections to the Reich government and Reichswehr leadership and reported until 1937.

In June 1938, Caden was warned of imminent arrest and fled to Paris . He lived in Sanary-sur-Mer in southern France until 1939 and was friends with Lion Feuchtwanger , Friedrich Wolf and Ludwig Marcuse . Caden was arrested in 1939 and held in the Les Milles internment camp until he escaped in 1940 . Caden lived illegally in Marseille until 1942 and then came to Cuba via Morocco , where he settled in a suburb of Havana . While in Cuban exile, Caden was chairman of the Free Germany Movement in Cuba and regularly gave anti-fascist radio addresses. In Cuba, Caden was the founder and head of the “Committee of German Antifascists” and in 1946 the founder of the “Alexander von Humboldt Circle of Friends”.

Agent of the KGB and the MfS

After the end of World War II , Caden returned to Germany in March 1948, settled in the Soviet occupation zone and became a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). He became head of the commission for artistic work in the state of Saxony. In 1949 a controversy arose when Caden, in his function as artistic director of the 2nd German Art Exhibition in Dresden, encouraged visiting Mexican artists to take part in a “wall painting action Dresden 1949”, which was shortly afterwards banned by the party and government of the GDR as “formalistic” .

In 1949/50 Caden was a member of the SED in the Provisional People's Chamber of the GDR and from 1950 a city ​​councilor in Dresden.

From 1949 to 1953 Caden was an agent of the Soviet secret service Ministry for State Security (MGB). From January 1954 he was an unofficial employee of the MfS in Dresden as IM Richard and was also deployed in the Federal Republic of Germany . From 1955 to 1968 Caden worked again for the Soviet secret service KGB .

Honors

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marcus Kenzler, The View into the Other World: Influences of Latin America on the Fine Arts of the GDR , LIT Verlag Münster, 2012
  2. ↑ Simone Simpson, Between Cultural Mission and Artistic Autonomy , Böhlau Verlag Köln Weimar, 2008
  3. ↑ Technische Universität Dresden, Gert Caden , Bildatlas Kunst in der DDR , Dresden, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Caden, Gert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kaden, Gerd (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German artist, agent of the KPD, SED member of the People's Chamber and agent (KGB / MfS)
DATE OF BIRTH June 10, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH September 9, 1990
Place of death Dresden