Hans Kohoutek

Hans Kohoutek (actually Johannes Kohoutek ; born November 2, 1911 in Leipzig , † 2013 in Berlin ) was a German police officer in the Soviet occupation zone and in the GDR . He was Police President in Chemnitz, Head of the Main Department of Industrial Security, Head of the Prison Administration (VSV) of the Ministry of the Interior of the GDR (MdI) and Head of the Leipzig District Authority of the German People's Police (BDVP).

Life

Kohoutek was the only child of a Czech tailor and a German maid. From 1926 he learned the profession of druggist. During his apprenticeship he joined the Jungspartakusbund , became a member of the white-collar union and, in 1929, the Proletarian Freethinker Youth . Kohoutek worked as an accountant and became a member of the KPD in 1932 .

After the National Socialists came to power, he did anti-fascist resistance work. He was arrested on March 21, 1933 and taken to the Elisenburg prison in Leipzig. Shortly thereafter, he was sentenced to three months in prison for violating the wicked ordinance . Due to the Hindenburg amnesty , he was released after just four weeks. He continued to do illegal work and was arrested again in 1934 and sentenced to one year in prison in October 1935 for continuing to work in the illegal Communist Party . He served his sentence in the prisons in Leipzig, Bautzen and Löbau. After his release from prison, he was unemployed. He was under police supervision and had to report to the police almost every day. At the beginning of the Second World War he was still considered unworthy of defense. But in the course of the war he was drafted into the armed forces for military service in 1940 . He joined a communications unit as a radio operator. During a mission on the Eastern Front he defected to the Red Army in February 1944 and was taken prisoner by the Soviets. He became a student at the Antifa Front School of the 1st Ukrainian Front and a member of the National Committee for Free Germany (NKFD). On behalf of the NKFD, he took part in the fight against the German Wehrmacht on the side of the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front in April 1944 . He participated in propaganda broadcasts and distributed leaflets at the front. With the 197th Rifle Division of the 3rd Guard Army, he reached Radebeul at the beginning of May 1945 via Krakow and Breslau.

Here, on May 11, 1945, the Soviet occupying forces gave him protective police duties. He stayed in the Chemnitz and Dresden area for the time being, as his hometown Leipzig was still occupied by the Americans. On August 11, 1945, he was appointed police chief in Annaberg by Hermann Matern . As VP Commander (Lieutenant Colonel) he handed over the People's Police District Office (VPKA) Annaberg to his successor in July 1949 and went to Chemnitz as Police President (successor to Johannes Dick ). After 18 months, on March 1, 1951, he became head of the main department of industrial security at the MdI in Berlin, which was separated from the police and established as an independent branch of the service. He was promoted to VP inspector (colonel) and during this time completed a three-year distance learning course at the SED party college . In 1957 he became head of the Leipzig district authority of the German People's Police (BDVP). At the same time he was a member of the SED district leadership in Leipzig and a member of the district assembly. Kohoutek was appointed head of the criminal enforcement administration (VSV) of the MdI on January 1, 1962, but did not take up his post until April 1962 (successor to the incumbent head Werner Jauch, who was again deputy of the VSV). His uncooperative behavior towards the Ministry of State Security led to his replacement in 1965. Kohoutek was released from the police force in 1970 and lived in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen .

After the reunification in the GDR he was a member of the Initiative Group for the Protection of Social Rights (ISOR). Kohoutek died at the age of 101.

Awards

• 1981 Gold Medal for the Patriotic Order of Merit
• 1986 Order of the Star of Friendship of Nations in silver

literature

• Publication by the Ministry of the Interior, Life and Struggle in the Service of the People, Literary Portraits , Berlin 1984, Volume 3.
• Andreas Herbst (eds.), Winfried Ranke, Jürgen Winkler: This is how the GDR worked. Volume 3: Lexicon of functionaries (= rororo manual. Vol. 6350). Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-499-16350-0 , p. 182.
• Birger Dölling: Prison execution between the turnaround and reunification: criminal policy and prisoner protest in the last year of the GDR , Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-527-0 .

Web links

• "Ask us, we're the last!" Memories of those persecuted by National Socialism and people from the anti-fascist resistance. An interview brochure. VVN-BdA Berlin, part 2 (of 6), pp. 6-15
• Jan Philipp Wölbern: The historical processing of the forced labor of political prisoners in the penitentiary system of the GDR , p. 18 f. (accessed October 25, 2017).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ISOR congratulates. In: ISOR-aktuell No. 12/2007 (accessed on October 26, 2015).
2. ↑ Honor her memory! We mourn the comrades who died in 2013! . In: Unser Blatt issue 55 - January 2014, p. 15. (accessed on October 26, 2015).