Karl Marron

Karl Maron, 1957

Karl Maron (born April 27, 1903 in Charlottenburg , † February 2, 1975 in East Berlin ) was a German politician ( KPD , SED ). He was Minister of the Interior of the GDR from 1955 to 1963 and had been a member of the Central Committee (ZK) of the SED since 1954 .

Life

The son of a coachman completed an apprenticeship as a machine fitter after attending primary school from 1917 to 1921 and worked in the profession he had learned until 1929. Since 1919 he was active as a wrestler in the workers' sports movement. In 1926 he joined the KPD. From 1927 to 1928 he was a member of the KP leadership of the Siemens works in Berlin , since 1931 a member of the Reich leadership of the combat group for red sports unit and since 1932 chairman of the workers' sports club "Fichte" .

As a result of the Nazi takeover of power in 1933 , Maron worked illegally and emigrated to Copenhagen in 1934 , where he became editor of the press service of the Red Sports International (RSI). From 1935 he was a representative of the RSI on the Executive Committee of the Communist International (EKKI) in Moscow and after the dissolution of the RSI in 1937 he worked in the press and information department of the EKKI. During the Second World War he was editor of the newspaper Free Germany of the NKFD from 1943 to 1945 and was responsible for war reporting.

In 1945 he returned to Germany with the “ Ulbricht Group ”. Until 1946 he was First Deputy Mayor of Berlin . With the forced unification he became a member of the SED, was SED city councilor until 1949 and from 1948 city councilor for economy. In 1948 Maron took part in the negotiations on a joint constitution for Berlin . From 1949 to 1950 he was deputy editor-in-chief of the SED central organ New Germany . In 1950, in the rank of Inspector General, he succeeded the late Kurt Fischer as Chief of the German People's Police and Deputy Minister of the Interior. From 1955 until his resignation for health reasons in 1963, he succeeded Willi Stoph as Minister of the Interior and at the same time head of the German People's Police, most recently in the rank of Colonel General from 1962 .

tomb

Maron was since 1954 member of the Central Committee of the SED and 1958-1967 deputy of the People's Chamber . In 1961 he was a member of the staff of the National Defense Council until the Berlin Wall was built . From 1964 he was head of the institute for opinion research at the Central Committee of the SED. His urn is buried in the memorial of the socialists at the Friedrichsfelde central cemetery in Berlin-Lichtenberg .

Private

Karl Maron had been married to Hella (1915–2010), née Iglarz, since 1955 and was thus the stepfather of the writer Monika Maron .

Honors

• Maron received the Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold on May 6, 1955 , the Karl Marx Order in 1963 , the honorary title of Labor Hero in 1965, the honor bar for the Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold in 1968 and the Scharnhorst Order in 1973 .
• The Poelchaustraße in Marzahn was called Karl-Maron-Straße from 1978 to 1992 .
• The German Post Office of the GDR issued a special postage stamp with his picture in 1983 .

literature

• Peter Erler , Helmut Müller-Enbergs :  Marron, Karl . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

Commons : Karl Maron  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Karl Maron in the catalog of the German National Library