Karl Litke

Karl Litke 1952

Karl Georg Friedrich Litke , also Carl Litke (* July 22, 1893 in Charlottenburg ; † February 20, 1962 in East Berlin ) was a German politician of the SPD and later the SED .

Life

Litke was a lithographer's assistant and worked in the profession until 1922. In 1910 he joined the free trade unions and in 1912 the SPD. Litke was a soldier during the First World War . From 1919 he was a member of the board of directors of the local health insurance fund for lithographers and lithographers in Berlin. Between 1922 and 1926 worked as an employee for this fund. From 1927 to 1933 he was the full-time secretary of the Main Association of German Health Insurance Funds.

Between 1921 and 1933 Litke was a member of the district assembly in the Kreuzberg district . He was also the second chairman of the SPD district association for Greater Berlin from 1922 to 1933. From 1931 to 1933 he was also a member of the party's central executive committee. Between 1928 and 1933 Litke was a member of the German Reichstag .

At the beginning of the National Socialist era , after the SPD was banned, Litke was imprisoned in Spandau prison and in Brandenburg an der Havel concentration camp from the end of June to mid-December 1933 . After being released, Litke was unemployed for several years. He was involved in the resistance against the Nazi regime in a small group of social democrats around Fritz Barthelmann .

In 1945 Litke rejoined the SPD and was a member of the SPD central committee . Professionally, he worked in 1945 as the main department head of the Berlin Insurance Company . After the union with the KPD in 1946 Litke became a member of the SED. From 1946 to 1948 he was joint chairman of the Berlin SED together with Hermann Matern and was a member of the central party executive from 1946 to 1950. Between 1946 and 1948 Litke was a city councilor in Berlin, and from 1950 to 1954 he was a candidate for the Central Committee of the SED .

Between 1948 and 1950 he was the administrative director of the head office for labor and health of the German Economic Commission. After the formation of the Ministry of Labor and Health, he was chief department head there until 1953.

In addition, Litke was a member of the central revision commission of the people's solidarity between 1954 and 1956 . He then sat on the organisation's executive committee until 1962 and was its deputy chairman from 1959 to 1962. on May 6, 1955 he was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver.

Between 1957 and 1962 he published the magazine “Sozialistische Liefe”.

tomb

His urn was buried in the memorial of the socialists in the central cemetery Friedrichsfelde in Berlin-Lichtenberg .

In his honor, a party rest home built in the community of Wandlitz on a former feudal school yard was named after him. With the fall of the Wall , the home was closed and is now a privately owned spa hotel.

Publications

• In your cause, Berliner. The work of the SED group. State Board of SED Greater Berlin, Berlin [1947]

literature

• Werner Breunig, Siegfried Heimann , Andreas Herbst : Biographical Handbook of Berlin City Councilors and Members of Parliament 1946–1963 (=  series of publications by the Berlin State Archives . Volume 14 ). Landesarchiv Berlin , Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-9803303-4-3 , p. 170-171 (331 pages).
• Siegfried Mielke (Ed.) With the collaboration of Marion Goers, Stefan Heinz , Matthias Oden, Sebastian Bödecker: Unique - Lecturers, students and representatives of the German University of Politics (1920-1933) in the resistance against National Socialism. Lukas-Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-86732-032-0 , p. 102 f. (Short biography).
• Ditmar Staffelt : The Reconstruction of Berlin Social Democracy 1945/46 and the Unity Question - a contribution to the post-war history of the lower and middle organizational structures of the SPD , Verlag Peter Lang 1986, ISBN 978-3-8204-9176-0 , p. 431.
• Martin Schumacher (Hrsg.): MdR The Reichstag members of the Weimar Republic in the time of National Socialism. Political persecution, emigration and expatriation, 1933–1945. A biographical documentation . 3rd, considerably expanded and revised edition. Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5183-1 .
• Andreas Herbst , Helmut Müller-Enbergs :  Litke, Karl . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

Commons : Karl Litke  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Karl Litke in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Karl Litke's biography . In: Wilhelm H. Schröder : Social Democratic Parliamentarians in the German Reich and Landtag 1876–1933 (BIOSOP)
• Karl Litke's biography . In: Heinrich Best and Wilhelm H. Schröder : Database of Members of the National Assembly and the German Reichstag 1919–1933 (Biorab – Weimar)