Gustav Degner

Gustav Degner (born October 29, 1892 in Berlin , † January 19, 1978 in West Berlin ) was a German politician of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in the early German Democratic Republic (GDR). From May 1945 to October 1946 he was used by the Soviet occupation forces as mayor of the Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg . In 1950 he was expelled from the SED and moved to West Berlin.

Life

After graduating from middle school and doing an apprenticeship as a commercial clerk , Degner worked for the Sparkasse der Stadt Berlin from 1915 . From 1916 to 1918 he fought as a simple soldier in the First World War . From 1919 to 1922 he worked as a department head in the unemployed welfare department of the city of Berlin. From 1922 Degner was a full-time editor of the KPD magazine Die Kommune .

During the war Degner joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) and became a member of the KPD in 1920. Still for the USPD, he was elected to the Berlin city council in 1920 , to which he belonged until 1929. From February to April 1926 he was also an unpaid, then paid city ​​councilor in the Prenzlauer Berg district.

In 1929 Degner was involved in the Sklarek scandal , in which over ten million Reichsmarks of city Berlin funds were embezzled. Because of "severe passive corruption" Degner in 1932 to six months in prison sentenced after 1929 a few weeks in custody had been sitting. Together with Otto Gäbel , he was expelled from the KPD as a result of the scandal in October 1929. Degner retained his mandate as a city councilor in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg until he was dismissed for political reasons on July 1, 1933.

During the dictatorship of National Socialism Degner ran a retail business in Berlin and had contact with resistance circles, including the left-wing socialist group Red Shock Troop . After the end of the Second World War he rejoined the KPD and was appointed mayor of Berlin Prenzlauer Berg by the Soviet occupation forces in May 1945. In October 1946 he was unanimously elected deputy mayor by the newly convened district council assembly. On June 9, 1948, he officially resigned from his office “for personal reasons”, but the decisive factor was apparently conflicts with the Soviet occupying power.

Degner then became department head of a department of the German Economic Commission (DWK). In February 1950, party proceedings were opened against him for “anti-Soviet stance, cooperation with class-hostile pests and lack of trust” and he was expelled from the SED. Shortly afterwards Degner fled to West Berlin.

Degner later opened a clothing store in West Berlin and became a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

In 2000, a controversy arose because the district parliamentary group of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) proposed that a Berliner Strasse should be named after Degner, which was met with violent opposition from the parliamentary group of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and the district council assembly in Prenzlauer Berg was rejected.

literature

• Active Museum Association: In Front of the Door - Berlin City Councilors and Magistrate Members persecuted under National Socialism 1933–1945 , Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-00-018931-9 , page 167 f.
• Dennis Egginger-Gonzalez: The Red Assault Troop. An early left-wing socialist resistance group against National Socialism. Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3867322744 , pages 291, 295, 398f., 412, 447, 460f. and 478.
• 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 ( online ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Michael Prellberg, No Road for Gustav Degner? , In: Berliner Zeitung , May 11, 2000
2. ↑ Tanja Buntrock, PDS wants to name the street after a politician who was involved in a bribery case , In: Der Tagesspiegel , May 10, 2000