Karl Ellrich

Karl Ellrich (born December 7, 1902 in Halberstadt , † July 10, 1988 in Berlin ) was a German teacher and trade unionist . He was chairman of the teaching and education union in the FDGB .

Life

Ellrich, son of a leather worker, attended elementary school . From 1917 to 1920 he completed the teachers' seminar in Halberstadt. In 1923 he joined the KPD and from 1924 was head of the children's homes of the Rote Hilfe in Worpswede (the commune and work school Barkenhoff ) and Elgersburg . From 1925 he was active in communist trade union work and a member of the International of Educational Workers. From 1928 Ellrich worked as a primary school teacher in Berlin. In 1931 he joined SAP .

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists in 1933, he was dismissed from school and moved to Bavaria . In 1943 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht as a medic and was taken prisoner by the Americans in April 1945 .

In 1945 he rejoined the KPD and in 1946 became a member of the SED . From 1945 he worked as a consultant for elementary and secondary schools, from September 1946 as a consultant for elementary schools in the German Central Administration for National Education . From December 1949 to February 1954 Ellrich was chairman of the central board of the teaching and education union (GUE) and a member of the FDGB federal board and its executive committee. On 11/12 In February 1954 he was branded at the 15th central board meeting of the GUE as a “carrier of social democracy ” and expelled from the FDGB and the SED for alleged “anti-union acts”. Then worked as an employee at the German Central Institute for Teaching Aids, later at the German Central Pedagogical Institute.

Ellrich last lived in Berlin and was buried in the cemetery for the victims and persecuted of the Nazi regime in the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery.

Shortly before its self-dissolution at the beginning of October 1990, the teaching and education union rehabilitated its secretariat, which was disciplined after the events of June 17, 1953 . The Central Board praised this secretariat, headed by Karl Ellrich, as a trade union interest group in the real sense, which did not participate in the witch hunt for "traitors and guilty parties for June 17, 1953" and was then ostracized and betrayed itself.

Awards

• Patriotic Order of Merit in Silver (1982)

literature

• Petra Gruner: The new teachers, a key symbol of GDR society. Biographical constructions of teachers between experiences and social expectations . Deutscher Studien Verlag, Weinheim 2000, ISBN 3-89271-917-9 , p. 50.
• Tilman Grammes , Henning Schluß , Hans-Joachim Vogler: Citizenship in the GDR. A volume of documents. Verlag für Sozialwissenschaft, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 978-3-8100-1893-9 , p. 53.
• Christoph Lüth, Klaus Pecher (Ed.): Children's magazines in the GDR . Klinkhardt, Bad Heilbrunn 2007, ISBN 978-3-7815-1503-1 , p. 52.
• Andreas Herbst : Ellrich, Karl. In: Dieter Dowe , Karlheinz Kuba, Manfred Wilke (Hrsg.): FDGB-Lexikon. Function, structure, cadre and development of a mass organization of the SED (1945–1990). Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86872-240-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Obituary in Neues Deutschland from July 12, 1988.
2. ↑ Special Memorial Days 2013 ( Memento of the original from October 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the side of the socialist cemetery. 
3. ^ New Germany of October 3, 1990.
4. ↑ Berliner Zeitung of October 5, 1982.