History of the fire brigade in the GDR
The history of the fire brigade in the GDR describes the development of fire extinguishing in the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) .
Fire protection in the SBZ
With the establishment of the federal states in the SBZ, responsibility for fire extinguishing was transferred to them. The Fire Extinguishing Act (FLG) from the time of National Socialism was replaced by state laws and regulations of the state governments based on them. For example, the Thuringian state parliament passed the "Law on Fire Extinguishing" of November 8, 1946. It declared fire protection to be the task of the local authorities and authorized the Ministry of the Interior to issue implementing provisions. Similar laws were also passed in the other countries of the Soviet Zone.
Fire protection in the construction phase of the GDR
The first legislative measures of the GDR in the field of fire protection concerned company fire protection. On the basis of the 8th article of the Fire Protection Ordinance of August 28, 1949, with the first implementation provision for the Fire Protection Ordinance of September 15, 1950, companies in the GDR were subject to special surveillance in order to avert impending extraordinary fire hazards and to maintain public safety in the GDR assumed. A business within the meaning of this ordinance was defined as any business unit of movable and immovable, publicly owned and private property , regardless of type and size. The user area is not specified in this fire protection regulation . In fact, almost all agricultural and other commercial companies in the GDR were subject to this regulation . The reason for issuing this fire protection regulation was the interest of the GDR government in securing the foundations for the creation of their “workers and farmers state”. As a result of this objective, it was believed that production in the GDR had to be particularly protected from acts of sabotage, which is indirectly clear from the preamble to this fire protection regulation. The regulation of the company fire protection from September 1950 falls in the time of the first economic decisions of the GDR. At the same time, at the beginning of 1953, the regional authorities were transformed into so-called local organs of state power, which completely eliminated local self-government by municipalities and districts in the GDR and thus created the prerequisites for the Stalinist principle of rule of "democratic centralism ". The fire protection system was included in the structural principle in 1956 and incorporated into the administration of the German People's Police . In the GDR, according to its own self-image, the revolutionary period was not yet over. On January 18, 1956, the GDR promulgated its first fire protection law : the law for protection against fire hazards . This fire protection law falls in the era of the modernization of the GDR, which was shaped by the second five-year plan for the years 1956 to 1960 and was characterized by the gradual mechanization and automation of industrial production processes. The planning and construction of nuclear power plants in the GDR and the rapid developments also fell into this epoch . The fire protection law of 1956 marks the beginning of the modernization of fire protection in the GDR.
The preamble of the law clarifies the location of fire protection during this time:
- Central fire protection organs: These included the main fire department in the main administration of the German People's Police ; the fire brigade department in the district authorities of the German People's Police with the fire protection inspections directly subordinate to them and the fire brigade departments in the people's police district offices with their subordinate fire protection inspections and fire brigade commands.
- Local fire protection bodies: These included in the cities and municipalities as well as institutions: The voluntary fire brigades (FF), the compulsory fire brigades and those responsible for fire protection as well as other persons charged with fire protection.
- Company fire protection bodies: These included the professional fire brigades (BF), voluntary and compulsory fire brigades as well as those responsible for fire protection and those responsible for fire protection in the industrial and agricultural companies, administrations and other facilities .
With the law for the protection of fire hazards, the name of the municipal professional fire brigades was also lost; these were now given the names of the fire brigade, fire protection inspections and fire brigade commands, and were thus completely nationalized.
The Central Fire Protection Bodies were empowered by the Fire Protection Act to carry out or order all necessary measures to avert dangers arising from fire or other public emergencies by society , individuals or the economy . Because tasks and powers in this law were vague and could be interpreted almost indefinitely, the fire brigades became an instrument of political arbitrariness. This is also clear from the concept of public emergency . According to the legal wording, the use of fire brigades in internal emergencies, which could be caused, for example, by strikes or uprisings, was also considered. The state fire brigades were then also deployed in the construction of the Berlin Wall on August 13, 1961 to clear the border strips of obstacles. There is no doubt that these are not tasks that fire brigades should have done.
With the ordinance on the statutes of the voluntary fire brigades and compulsory fire brigades of the local and operational fire protection bodies of January 14, 1959, the tasks, the organizational structures, the rights and obligations of the members of this fire brigade were regulated in more detail. At the district level, disaster control units have already been formed, which consist of a disaster construction train or fire-fighting train and a special group.
On the basis of the law on protection against fire hazards, the first implementing provision for this law was promulgated on January 16, 1961, which wanted to define “responsibilities in operational fire protection”. It should be emphasized that this implementation regulation prescribes company-specific fire protection regulations, fire brigade site plans and an obligation to report fires and explosions. The company fire brigades with full-time staff (professional fire brigades) were also able to receive the status of a fire brigade command and thus become a state institution. The Ministry of the Interior then had to take over the equipment of these fire brigades .
On December 19, 1974, the law on fire protection in the GDR (Fire Protection Act) was promulgated. This Fire Protection Act lacked any preamble reference to the particular historical situation. Instead, a definition and a description of the tasks of the Fire Protection Act were made in its 1st article.
Firefighting in the 1980s
In 1982 the 1st Working Group on Fire Brigade History was founded in the GDR. In 1982, the “Special Rescue Service (SRD)” was founded at the Berlin professional fire brigade for rescue at heights , which used mountain rescue methods. In 1986 it was introduced throughout the GDR, later renamed the Height Rescue Service (HRD).
The fire brigades of the GDR took part in the international fire brigade competitions of the fire brigade world association CTIF (Fire Brigade Olympiad ) held every four years with a selection team of professional fire brigades, and with great success. At the 8th International Fire Brigade Competitions of the CTIF, which took place from July 15 to 21, 1985 in Vöcklabruck / Austria , a German-German encounter between the GDR team and the sports competition group of the volunteer fire brigade from Beselich in Hesse took place four years before the fall of the Wall -Obertiefenbach , who met in front of the stadium on the way to the graduation ceremony and posed for a unique photo of German-German firefighters in their uniforms.
Fire department publications
Until the publication of an independent magazine for the fire brigades and for those involved in fire protection in the GDR, articles were published in the magazine “Die Volkspolizei”, the first edition of which was printed in March 1948. In September 1951 the first issue of “ Our Fire Protection ” (also called “UB” for short) was published as the only magazine for fire protection in the GDR. It stayed that way until the turn of 1990. Today it appears with a new layout and under the name "FIRE DEPARTMENT Retten Delete Bergen".
See also
literature
- Heinz glasses as head of an author collective: "Water march in the GDR" - fire protection in the Soviet occupation zone and in the German Democratic Republic . Teltower Stadt-Blatt Verlags- und Presse GmbH, Teltow 2012, ISBN 978-3-9815085-0-5 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Franz-Josef Sehr : The friendship with the fire brigade began before - Beselich and the GDR national team at CTIF . In: Florian Hessen 7/2015 . Henrich Druck + Medien, 2015, ISSN 0936-5370 , p. 22-23 .