Herbert Warnke

Herbert Warnke (right) awards the FDGB Art Prize to the writer Erik Neutsch , 1974

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Herbert Warnke (born February 24, 1902 in Hamburg , † March 26, 1975 in East Berlin ) was a German trade unionist and communist politician. In the GDR he was chairman of the FDGB and member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED .

Life

Warnke was born in a Hamburg basement apartment. The father was a bricklayer, the mother a housewife. Warnke completed an apprenticeship as a riveter from 1920 to 1924. He joined the KPD in 1923 and was a member of the German Metalworkers' Association from 1924 to 1928 . From 1929 to 1930 he was chairman of the works council at Blohm & Voss in Hamburg, then secretary of the district committee of the revolutionary trade union opposition in Bremen , secretary for trade union issues at the KPD district management Weser-Ems and from 1932 to 1933 a member of the Reichstag .

From June 1933 to around spring 1936 he was secretary of the Red Union International in Saarbrücken and Paris . Then he held positions in the North Section of the KPD in Copenhagen until 1938 . He fought against the Nazi regime from emigration. From 1939 to 1943 he was interned and imprisoned in Sweden . Then he took over a. the function of editor-in-chief of the magazine “Der Weg ins Leben”. He continued to work in several exile organizations in Sweden to advise on a post-war order in Germany.

After his return to Germany in 1946 he became chairman of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania regional board and member of the federal board. From 1948 until his death he was first chairman of the federal board of the FDGB. Since 1949 he was a member of the party executive or the Central Committee of the SED and a member of the People's Chamber . In 1950 he became a member of the Secretariat, a candidate in 1953 and a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED in 1958. He became a member of the Executive Committee in 1949, a Vice-President in 1953 and a member of the Bureau of the General Council of the World Trade Union Confederation in 1969 . Since 1971 he was a member of the State Council .

Warnke received the Patriotic Order of Merit (VVO) in gold in 1955 , the Karl Marx Order in 1962 , the Lenin Peace Prize in 1967 and the VVO Medal of Honor in gold and in 1972 the Lenin Order . His urn was buried in the memorial of the socialists in the central cemetery Friedrichsfelde in Berlin-Lichtenberg .

The FDGB holiday home in Klink , the VEB chemical fiber factory in Guben , the VEB Kombinat Umformtechnik and the Grenzregiment 15 in Sonneberg were named after him.

His brother is Johannes Warnke .

literature

• Michael F. Scholz :  Herbert Warnke . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Heinz Germany, Alfred Förster and Ernst Egon Lange: shop steward in his class - Herbert Warnke. A biographical sketch . 2nd Edition. Verlag Tribüne, Berlin 1983.
• Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German communists . Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 ( online ).
• Eberhard Podzuweit: Herbert Warnke (1902–1975) , In: Siegfried Mielke , Stefan Heinz (ed.) With the collaboration of Julia Pietsch: Emigrierte Metallgewerkschafter in the fight against the Nazi regime (= trade unionists under National Socialism. Persecution - Resistance - Emigration. Volume 3). Metropol, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86331-210-7 , pp. 408-430.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The 4th FDGB Congress begins today , In: Neues Deutschland , June 15, 1955, p. 1
2. ↑ Walter Ulbricht awarded high honors , In: Neues Deutschland, February 28, 1967, p. 1
3. ↑ See: http : // www. Grenzkommando.de/gr-15-sonneberg-1.html
4. ↑ Peter Hübner: Herbert Warnke at the top of the FDGB, p. 106, bulletin of the Institute for Social Movements, Issue 35 (2006)

Web links

Commons : Herbert Warnke  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Herbert Warnke in the catalog of the German National Library
• Herbert Warnke in the database of members of the Reichstag