Klaus Gysi

Klaus Gysi, 1946

Klaus Gysi at the annual conference of the German Writers' Association in East Berlin in 1966

Klaus Gysi (born March 3, 1912 in Neukölln ; † March 6, 1999 in Berlin ) was active in the communist resistance against National Socialism , from 1966 to 1973 Minister of Culture and from 1979 to 1988 State Secretary for Church Affairs in the GDR .

Life

Gysi was born the son of the doctor Hermann Gysi (1888–1950) and the accountant Erna Potolowsky (1893–1966). He came from a Berlin family, whose ancestor, the silk dyers Samuel Gysin (* 1681) from the Swiss Läufelfingen , after a longer stay in Basel , a native 1731/32 with his family. About his mother he was of Jewish origin. Klaus Gysi attended elementary school in the Berlin district of Neukölln and the secondary school . The parents divorced in 1929. In 1931 he passed the Abitur in Darmstadt after attending the Odenwald School . Since 1928 he had been a member of the Communist Youth Association of Germany , the International Workers 'Aid and the Socialist Students' Union and joined the KPD in 1931 . At times he worked as a youth functionary for the KP in Hesse . From 1931 to 1935 he studied economics in Frankfurt am Main , at the Sorbonne in Paris and in Berlin.

From 1931 on, Gysi was active in the Red Student Movement. In 1935 he was supported by the Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Berlin directed , went in 1936 to Cambridge and in 1939 member of the student leadership of the Communist Party in Paris. From 1939 to 1940 he was interned in France . When the German armed forces marched in, he was able to go into hiding. In the middle of the war, he returned to Germany with his wife Irene Gysi (née Lessing, sister of Gottfried Lessing ) on a KPD decision , which at that time meant a high risk for the half-Jew and communist Klaus Gysi. With luck and skill, the Gysis survived the five years until the end of the war in the illegality of Berlin. During this time Gysi worked for the Hoppenstedt & Co. publishing house and continued to be politically active.

In 1946 Gysi joined the SED . From 1945 to 1948 he was editor-in-chief of the cultural-political monthly Aufbau , from 1945 to 1977 a member of the Presidential Council, federal secretary and finally a member of the Presidium of the Kulturbund and from 1949 to 1954 a member of the People's Chamber . From 1952 to 1957 he worked at the Volk und Wissen publishing house and was then head of the Aufbau publishing house as successor to Walter Janka until 1966 . From 1956 to 1964 Gysi worked as an unofficial employee under the code name "Kurt" for the Ministry of State Security .

From 1963 Gysi was a member of the Western Commission of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED . From 1966 (from January 12, 1966) to 1973 he was Minister of Culture and thus a member of the Council of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic. He was also a member of the culture commission of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED. From 1967 to March 1990 he was again a member of the People's Chamber.

Gysi was ambassador to Italy from 1973 to 1978 . Subsequently, from December 1978 to 1979, he was Secretary General of the semi-official GDR Committee for European Security and Cooperation, which served to prepare the CSCE . From November 1979 until his retirement in 1988 Gysi was State Secretary for Church Affairs. In 1990 he became a member of the PDS .

Gysi was awarded the Labor Banner in 1969 , the Commemorative Medal of the Ministry of State Security and the Lenin Commemorative Medal in 1970, the Patriotic Order of Merit in 1962 and 1972 , the Karl Marx Order in 1977, the Patriotic Order of Merit in 1982 and the Great Star in 1987 excellent for friendship among peoples . In 1987 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena .

tomb

Gysi died on March 6, 1999 at the age of 87 in Berlin and was buried in the Dahlem forest cemetery in Berlin-Zehlendorf . (Grave location field 013-22) Der Spiegel wrote in its obituary that Gysi had been "for decades the eloquent cultural and church-political figurehead" of the GDR; the upper-class cultural functionary acted “cosmopolitan but true to the line”. Christoph Dieckmann described Gysi in 2008 as a “highly cultivated cynic” and part of the “red nobility of the GDR”.

Klaus Gysi was married three times and had seven children, including:

• Gabriele Gysi (born 1946) is an actress and left the GDR in 1985.
• Gregor Gysi (born 1948) worked as a lawyer in the GDR. From 1990 to 1993 he was chairman of the PDS and is still one of the most prominent politicians on the left .
• Andreas Goldstein (born 1964) is a theater scholar and director . He made the documentary “ The Functionary ” (2018) about Gysi .

literature

• Bernd-Rainer Barth , Helmut Müller-Enbergs :  Gysi, Klaus . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Karin Hartewig: A German Jewish Communist of the Second Generation. The Changing Personae of Klaus Gysi. In: Jonathan Fraenkel, Dan Diner (ed.): Dark Times, Dire Decisions: Jews and Communism (= Studies in Contemporary Jewry. Volume 20). Oxford University Press, New York 2004, pp. 255-274.
• Hans-Dieter Schütt (ed.): Klaus Gysi. Between book and message . Issues on GDR history, "Helle Panke" e. V., 2019.

Web links

Commons : Klaus Gysi  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Klaus Gysi in the catalog of the German National Library
• Felix Corley: Obituary: Klaus Gysi. In: The Independent , March 31, 1999.
• Detlef Friedrich: On the death of Klaus Gysi: All of this century. In: Berliner Zeitung , March 8, 1999.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See “Feodor Potolowsky” , on: Stolpersteine ​​in Berlin , accessed on September 29, 2018.
2. ^ Stefan Hess : Gysin. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . December 5, 2006 , accessed October 8, 2017 .
3. ↑ Michael Wolffsohn : The Germany files. Jews and Germans in East and West. Facts and legends. Edition Ferenczy at Bruckmann Munich, Munich 1995 ( review ).
4. ↑ The future belongs to the hero child. In: taz. August 5, 2005.
5. ↑ Jens König: Gregor Gysi. A biography . 1st edition. Rowohlt, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-87134-453-2 , p. 56 ff .
6. ^ Clemens Vollnhals : The Church Policy of the SED and State Security. An interim report (= analyzes and documents. Volume 7). Ch. Links, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-86153-122-4 , p. 96 ; Gerhard Besier : The Eastern CDU, its religious policy and the MfS. In: KAS.de , PDF ( Memento from October 16, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), p. 5.
7. ^ Died: Klaus Gysi. In: Der Spiegel , March 15, 1999.
8. ↑ Christoph Dieckmann: Gysi: Guilty or not?  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Die Zeit , May 29, 2008.  
9. ↑ Gunnar Decker: A belated funeral. Minister of Culture, publisher, ambassador, husband, father. In the cinema: the documentary »The Functionary«. In: New Germany. April 11, 2019, accessed on April 13, 2019 (link for a fee). 
10. ↑ Barbara Wurm: Film essay on Klaus Gysi: "The GDR is current" . In: The daily newspaper: taz . April 11, 2019, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed June 5, 2019]).
11. ↑ Andreas Goldstein on his film "The Functionary"