Horst Brie

Horst Brie (* 1. February 1923 in Berlin-Karlshorst , † 26. March 2014 ) was a diplomat of the GDR .

Life

Horst Brie grew up in Berlin and attended elementary school there and then grammar school until he was eleven. His father, a chemical equipment business traveler, was of Jewish origin and a member of the Communist Party . In 1934 the family therefore emigrated to Czechoslovakia .

emigration

Horst Brie attended the Stefan high school in Prague . He later came into contact with Adolf Buchholz and in 1938 co-founded the FDJ . After German troops marched into Czechoslovakia in 1939, Brie and his parents managed to flee to London via Poland . There Brie was involved with other refugees in the founding of the FDJ in Great Britain . In the early summer of 1940 he was briefly interned as an " enemy alien " in Huyton near Liverpool. But in the same year he was able to begin training as a tool fitter and then worked in this profession from 1942 to 1946. In 1943 he joined the KPD .

Return to Germany

In June 1946 Brie was able to return to Germany via Yugoslavia , where he was doing political work among German prisoners of war. His destination was the Soviet occupation zone . From 1946 to 1947 he worked as an editor at the regional broadcaster Schwerin . In Mecklenburg he became a FDJ functionary and in his capacity as deputy state chairman from 1947 to 1955 also a member of the central council of the FDJ. In 1949 Brie first became secretary of the SED district leadership in Schwerin and in the same year head of department and secretary of the SED state association in Mecklenburg.

He held this post until 1950, when he had to answer to the Central Party Control Commission like numerous Western emigrants. As a result, he was transferred to the Leezen machine-tractor station in 1951 , where he was director until 1954. After his rehabilitation, Brie was district secretary of the Society for German-Soviet Friendship in Schwerin from 1955 to 1958 . At the same time, he began distance learning in 1955 at the party college "Karl Marx" , which he completed in 1962 as a social scientist.

Entry into the diplomatic service

In 1958 Brie took up his position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the GDR . First he was 1st secretary at the embassy in China from 1958 to 1961 and then from 1961 to 1963 he was sector head and deputy head of department in the 1st non-European department (Far East) in the ministry. From 1963 to 1964 he was sent to China again as counselor and chargé d'affaires of the embassy before he was appointed ambassador to North Korea , where he represented the GDR from September 1964 to December 1968. In 1968 he was called back to Berlin and worked there as a scientific advisor in the ministry until 1971. He headed the Analysis, Planning, and Forecasting department, which became part of the Policy Department.

In 1971, Horst Brie became head of the Working Group on Preparing a European Security Conference (ESK) in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, in this capacity, was head of the GDR delegation from January to June 1973 during the preparatory talks on the reduction of troops and armaments in Central Europe in Vienna . In 1972 he went to Japan as an employee of the representation of the Chamber for Foreign Trade of the GDR . There he acted de facto as their head to prepare the emerging diplomatic relations. After the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, Brie was accredited on April 22, 1974 as the first extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador of the GDR to Japan. He was then from July 25, 1983 to September 19, 1990 Ambassador to Greece .

Horst Brie had three sons from his second marriage, Thomas, André and Michael . Since 1971 Horst Brie was married to Fanny Brie-Rosenthal. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee .

Awards

• 1969 Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze, 1976 in silver, 1983 in gold
• 1988 Gold Star of Friendship between Nations
• Artur Becker Medal in gold

Fonts

• David's Odyssey - A German childhood, a Jewish youth . (Autobiography, Part 1), Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 1997, ISBN 978-3-929161-94-6
• Memories of a left world citizen . (Autobiography, part 2), Dietz, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-320-02084-2

literature

• Andreas Herbst :  Horst Brie . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990. Volume 1: Abendroth - Lyr. KG Saur, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-598-11176-2 .
• Siegfried Bock u. a. (Ed.): GDR foreign policy. An overview. Volume III, data, facts, people. LIT, Münster 2010, ISBN 978-3-643-10559-2 ( Political Science. Volume 173)
• Günter Buch: Names and dates of important people in the GDR . 4th edition. Dietz, Berlin and Bonn 1987, ISBN 3-8012-0121-X
• Juliusz Stroynowski (Ed.): Who's who in the socialist countries of Europe. Volume 1. Saur, Munich a. a. 1989, ISBN 3-598-10719-6
• Alfred Fleischhacker : That was our life, memories of the history of the FDJ in Great Britain 1939-1945 , Verlag Neues Leben Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-355-01475-3
• Gottfried Hamacher et al. (Ed.): Against Hitler. Germans in the Resistance, in the armed forces of the anti-Hitler coalition and the "Free Germany" movement. Short biographies (series: Manuscripts / Rosa Luxemburg Foundation; Vol. 53) (PDF; 894 kB) Dietz, Berlin 2005, p. 37.

Web links

• Literature by and about Horst Brie in the catalog of the German National Library
• Page no longer available , search in web archives: Photo by Horst Brie

Footnotes

1. ^ Obituary notice, Berliner Zeitung of April 12, 2014, p. 11.
2. ↑ according to book : 1961–1964: 1st secretary at the embassy in the People's Republic of China; to Baumgartner / Hebig : 1961 1st Secretary at the Embassy in China, 1962 Deputy Head of Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
3. ↑ Stroynowski and Buch : 1961–1964 1st Secretary at the Embassy in China.
4. ↑ Neues Deutschland from January 31, 1973 and June 29, 1973