Helene Berg (politician)

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Helene Berg , née Veser (born April 10, 1906 in Mannheim , † February 21, 2006 in Berlin ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism , university lecturer and functionary of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). From 1958 to 1989 she was a member of the Central Committee (ZK) of the SED and director of the Institute for Social Sciences at the Central Committee of the SED .

Life

Veser, the daughter of a miller and later a wood factory worker and a maid, completed an apprenticeship as a tailor after elementary school until 1923 and worked in this profession in Mannheim until 1928. In 1921 she became a member of the Socialist Workers' Youth (SAJ), in 1922 in the German Clothing Workers Association and in 1924 in the Communist Youth Association of Germany (KJVD), where she became a member of the extended district management of Baden-Baden . During this time Veser was involved in anti-militarist actions against the French occupation forces in the Palatinate and did so-called disintegration work within the police. In 1926 she attended the Volksheim University of the General German Trade Union Federation (ADGB) in Tinz . In October 1927 Veser became a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD).

Until 1928 Veser headed the women's work in the Baden district management and was then a course student at the International Lenin School (ILS) in Moscow until 1931 . She received Soviet citizenship . From 1929 to 1931 she was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). In 1931 Veser returned to Germany and took on higher positions within the KPD. In 1931/32 she was an instructor in the agitation and propaganda department in Berlin. From 1932 until the National Socialists came to power and communist activities were banned in March 1933, she was the agitprop secretary of the Hanover district management .

Until 1935 Veser continued the party work in illegality. In 1933 she became the agitprop secretary of the district management in Halle (Saale) and in the same year, as successor to Max Opitz , political director of the Württemberg district management . In 1934/35 she was an instructor for the Saar district management under the code name Lotte . 1935 Veser passed over France in the emigration in the Soviet Union and received the party name Helene Berg , she also retained after the war as an official name.

From 1935 to 1937, under the code name Lene Neckar , Berg was deputy head of the German sector of the International Lenin School and at the same time teacher of the history of the CPSU and the history of the German workers' movement in Moscow. In 1938 she became an employee of the information radio in Moscow and later a consultant at the Soviet children's film studios Soyuz-Djetfilm .

Until 1941, Berg compiled collections on KPD history together with Rudolf Lindau . When the war broke out, she took over the leadership of the German group at the school of the Communist International in Kuschnarenkowo near Ufa under the code name Lene Ring . In September she became head of the German sector of the Antifa school for German prisoners of war in the village of Talizy and has meanwhile also taught at the party college of the CPSU in Moscow.

In April 1946 Berg returned to Germany, became a member of the SED and a professor at the party college "Karl Marx" in Liebenwalde . From 1946 to 1951 she took on various functions in the SED state leadership in Saxony-Anhalt . Here she was a close colleague of Bernhard Koenen . In 1951 Berg was temporarily acting director of the party university and was then until 1958, as professor, director of the Institute for Social Sciences at the Central Committee of the SED.

Berg was a candidate from 1954 to 1958 and then a member of the Central Committee of the SED until 1989. From 1958 to 1971 she was editor and representative of the SED at the Prague magazine Problems of Peace and Socialism . From 1972 to 1974 she was deputy director of the Institute for Opinion Research at the Central Committee of the SED until 1979, as the successor to Karl Maron . From 1979 to 1989 Berg was a consultant in the Department for International Relations of the Central Committee of the SED. From 1990 until her death, Berg was a member of the Council of the Elderly of the SED-PDS, later of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS).

Berg was married to the GDR's first minister for public education, Paul Wandel , and died in Berlin in 2006.

Honors in the GDR

literature

personal data
SURNAME Berg, Helene
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Veser, Helene (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German KPD and SED functionary, director of the Institute for Social Sciences at the SED Central Committee
DATE OF BIRTH April 10, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Mannheim
DATE OF DEATH February 21, 2006
Place of death Berlin