Josef Hegen

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Josef Hegen (born April 23, 1907 in Hunschgrün ( Bohemia ), † February 28, 1969 in Berlin ) was a communist politician first in the ČSR and after the Second World War in the GDR . Most recently he was Deputy Foreign Minister .

Life

Hegen, son of a miner, worked in brickworks and in mining after attending elementary school. He joined a socialist youth association in 1921 and the KPČ in 1924 . Between 1927 and 1929 he did military service in the Czechoslovak army. Between 1930 and 1935 he worked for the communist youth association as an instructor and district secretary in Reichenberg and Mährisch-Schönberg . In 1933 he became a member of the Central Committee. Because he had refused to participate in military exercises, he was sentenced in 1934 to two weeks in a military prison. From 1935 and 1938 he attended the Lenin School in Moscow . Upon his return, he was sentenced to six weeks of strict detention as an international deserter . Between 1938 and 1939 he was an instructor for the KPČ in South Moravia . He was also a member of the region's refugee committee.

He emigrated to the USSR in 1939 . There he worked as a locksmith and mechanic. In 1942 he was prepared for partisan use . In March 1943 he parachuted over Poland . He was not used as a partisan because he was arrested by the Gestapo only a few days later . He was first imprisoned in Kraków , Mährisch-Ostrau and Brno before he was sent to Mauthausen concentration camp in October 1943 .

After the liberation , Hegen was again an instructor for the KPČ in Karlovy Vary in 1945/46 . He also directed the expulsion and resettlement of Germans in the Soviet occupation zone in his area. He himself moved there in 1946 and joined the SED . Between 1946 and 1947 he was an instructor or chairman of the party in southwest Saxony . Then he was briefly secretary of the SED district leadership in Zwickau .

From December 1948 to March 1950 he headed the German People's Police (DVP) in the state of Saxony-Anhalt as chief inspector and successor to Wilhelm Zaisser . He was then Minister of the Interior of Saxony-Anhalt until the state was dissolved. His appointment was the result of a political cleansing, which also fell victim to Interior Minister Robert Siewert , whose successor he took over. At the same time he was a member of the state secretariat of the SED. From August 1952 to June 1953 he was chairman of the council of the Magdeburg district , member of the SED district leadership and its secretariat. During the popular uprising of 1953 he was a member of the operational staff of the SED district leadership and initially also claimed leadership of the DVP district authority. Walter Ulbricht later accused him and others involved of capitulating because he was forced to negotiate with representatives of demonstrators. He was given a party penalty, but this did not hinder his further career.

From July 1953 to February 1957 he was State Secretary, responsible for internal affairs in the Ministry of the Interior of the GDR . In 1954 he also belonged to a working group of the Central Committee that was supposed to develop a new line towards the churches. The group also included Paul Wandel , Fred Oelßner , Willi Barth and Erich Mielke . This composition makes it clear that the churches were seen primarily as a problem of internal security.

He was then from March 1957 to February 1961 ambassador to Poland and until 1964 ambassador to the People's Republic of China . With regard to the unrest in Poland in 1956 , in contrast to his predecessor Stefan Heymann , who tried to understand, he reported entirely in line with the interests of the GDR. At the same time, Hegen, who was considered a hardliner, was appointed at the instigation of Walter Ulbricht. In January 1964 he became Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and in 1966 first Deputy Minister and State Secretary.

In 1957 he was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver and in 1967 in gold. His urn was in the grave conditioning Pergolenweg the memorial of the socialists at the Berlin Central Cemetery Friedrichsfelde buried.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Frank Hirschinger: "Gestapo Agents, Trotskyists, Traitors". Communist party purges in Saxony-Anhalt 1918-1953 . Göttingen, 2005 p. 15
  2. ^ Wilfried Lübeck: June 17, 1953 in Magdeburg. "If the friends hadn't been there, there would have been a defeat." In: "... and the most important thing is unity": June 17, 1953 in the districts of Halle and Magdeburg , Münster and others, 2003 pp. 112–121
  3. ↑ Martin Georg Goerner: On the structures and methods of the SED church policy in the fifties. In: History and Transformation of the SED State . Berlin, 1994 p. 121
  4. ^ SED-Kader The middle level, Biographisches Lexikon, 2010, pp. 224/225
  5. ↑ Beate Ihme-Tuchel: "Some have dreamed of polycentrism." The reaction of the SED to the Polish crisis of 1956. In: The GDR - Analyzes of an abandoned state . Berlin 2001, p. 575
  6. ^ Hermann Wentker: Threatened by East and West. The de-Stalinization crisis of 1956 as a challenge for the GDR. In: Communism in Crisis: The De-Stalinization 1956 and the Consequences . Göttingen, 2008 p. 162
  7. ↑ Patriotic Order of Merit for Josef Hegen , In: Neues Deutschland , April 24, 1957, p. 2
  8. ^ New Germany of April 28, 1967
personal data
SURNAME Hegen, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (KPČ, SED)
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Fiery green
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 1969
Place of death Berlin