Hans Loch

This article deals with the German politician, on the Austrian architect see Hans Loch (architect) .

Hans Loch 1951

Grave of Hans Loch in the Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof in Berlin

Hans Loch (born November 2, 1898 in Cologne , † July 13, 1960 in East Berlin ) was chairman of the GDR block party LDPD and finance minister of the GDR .

Life

As the son of a locksmith, he was drafted into military service after attending grammar school in 1917. From 1918 to 1923 he studied law at the Universities of Cologne and Bonn and obtained his doctorate in 1923. jur. He then worked as a legal advisor and tax syndic . In 1936 he emigrated to the Netherlands , returned to Germany in 1938 and was a soldier in the Wehrmacht from 1939 to 1945 .

After the war, Loch initially worked as a farm worker and then in the justice service of the state of Thuringia . In 1945 he was a co-founder of the LDPD in the Gotha district , from 1947 chairman of the community policy committee of the party's central executive committee, from 1949 deputy party chairman, from July 1951 initially together with Karl Hamann and then, after his arrest, from late 1952, sole chairman of the party.

From 1946 to 1948 he was Lord Mayor of Gotha , then Minister of Justice of Thuringia until 1949. On October 12, 1949, he was appointed Minister of Finance in the first government of the GDR and held the office until November 24, 1955. Allegedly he was released from his position at his own request and was then supposed to take over the "processing of questions for all of Germany". From 1949 he was a member of the (provisional) People's Chamber , from 1950 deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers or Deputy Prime Minister of the GDR and from 1954 a member of the Presidium of the National Council of the National Front . From January 1954 he was chairman of the Committee for German Unity formed by the Council of Ministers. He was also a member of the Presidium of the German Peace Council from 1949 .

Awards and honors

• 1954 Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold
• 1954 Badge of Honor of the Society for German-Soviet Friendship Level I
• 1956 Ernst Moritz Arndt Medal
• 1960 Medal Banner of Labor
• In 1961 the city of Gotha named the "Dr.-Hans-Loch-Straße", which still bears this name today (2020).
• From 1961 to 1992, Hans-Loch-Strasse in Berlin-Friedrichsfelde was named after him. The largest new development area in East Berlin in the 1960s on both sides of this street was called the Hans-Loch-Viertel .

Fonts

• A citizen sees the Soviet Union. Leipzig 1953.
• On strange paths. Forays through the Russia of yesterday and today. Berlin 1955.
• Into a new era. A book for the middle class. Berlin 1958.
• From the Elbe to the Yellow Sea. Berlin 1958.
• We were there. Book publisher Der Morgen, Berlin 1959.

literature

• Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Ed.): Biographical Handbook of the SBZ / GDR 1945–1990 . tape 1 . KG Saur, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-598-11176-2 , p. 487 .
• Herbert Hömig:  Loch, Hans. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , pp. 742 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Helmut Müller-Enbergs :  Loch, Hans . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Secretariat of the Central Board of the LDPD (Ed.): Hans Loch. Contributions to his political biography 1945–1960 (= LDPD writings. Volume 12). Book publisher Der Morgen, Berlin 1974.
• Hans Loch and the founding of the GDR. Secretariat of the central executive committee of the LDPD, Berlin 1988.

Web links

Commons : Hans Loch  - Collection of Images

• Literature by and about Hans Loch in the catalog of the German National Library
• CV of Hans Lochs

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The work of the state apparatus is improved. In: Neues Deutschland , November 26, 1955, p. 1.
2. ^ The Council of Ministers decided to set up a "Committee for German Unity". In: Neues Deutschland , January 8, 1954, p. 1.
3. ↑ Hans-Loch-Strasse . In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein