Klaus Höpcke

Hoepcke is a redirect to this article. For other people see Hoepke .

Klaus Höpcke, 2014

Klaus Höpcke giving a lecture at the "Luther Conference" at the Wartburg , 1983

Klaus Höpcke (born November 27, 1933 in Cuxhaven ) is a former politician of the SED and the PDS and was Deputy Minister for Culture of the GDR .

Life

The son of an employee family attended elementary school in Berlin and Burg Stargard as well as high school in Neubrandenburg . After graduating from high school, he studied from 1951 to 1955 at the Faculty of Journalism at the University of Leipzig . After an internship at the SED-Organ Freiheit in Halle (Saale) , he was a research assistant or senior assistant at the Faculty of Journalism at Karl Marx University until 1960.

Since 1947 he was a member of the FDJ and since 1953 of the SED . From 1960 to 1962 he was deputy secretary of the university party leadership of the SMEs and from 1962 to 1964 a member of the SED district leadership in Leipzig, and from 1962 to January 1964 first secretary of the FDJ district leadership. At the same time he was a member of the office of the Central Council of the FDJ until April 1964. In these functions he acted as a "one hundred percent" representative of the party line, for example in the enforcement of compulsory military service in the GDR or the ban on the student cabaret Rat der Mockers (which ended with imprisonment for the cabaret artists, including the later crime scene commissioner Peter Sodann ).

From February 1964 to March 1973, Höpcke was a member of the editorial board of the SED central organ New Germany, responsible for culture, art and literature. As editor of the ND , he directed campaigns against unwelcome poets and writers, such as Wolf Biermann . From 1968 to 1990 he was a member of the Presidential Council of the Kulturbund der DDR .

From March 1973 to 1989, Höpcke was Bruno Haid's successor, Deputy Minister for Culture and Head of the Publishing and Book Trade Headquarters . In the increasingly narrow role of "book minister", and therefore the highest censor , Höpcke acted ambiguously. On the one hand, he personally prevented the publication of GDR-critical novels and stories, often coordinating with the apparatus of the Central Committee and the responsible Politburo member Kurt Hager (the writer Erich Loest described Höpcke as a "government criminal"). On the other hand, he made it possible for unadjusted publications to appear, provided that they did not aim at an absolute confrontation with the SED regime. In 1985 he received disciplinary proceedings because he had given permission to print Volker Braun's "Hinze Kunze novel". In early 1989 he was reprimanded for the release of Václav Havel for agreeing to the PEN resolution .

On November 1, 1989, he became head of the culture commission at the Politburo of the SED Central Committee and on December 9, he became a member of the presidium of the SED-PDS party executive committee and head of the cultural, scientific and educational policy commission. From March to October 1990 he was a member of the People's Chamber and, from May, head of the policy committee of the PDS party executive. From 1990 onwards, he worked across party lines to secure and preserve the GDR archives and was one of the initiators of the Foundation for Parties and Mass Organizations in the GDR (SAPMO) within the framework of the Federal Archives .

Then he was a member of the state parliament in Thuringia , initially as parliamentary group leader of the PDS, and from 1994 as spokesman for science and university policy. In 1999 he left the state parliament.

Awards

• 1964 Artur Becker Medal in gold
• 1976 Wilhelm Bracke Medal
• 1983 Patriotic Order of Merit in silver

Fonts

• Culture in your life . Berlin 1967
• Sample for life . Hall 1982
• Opportunities of literature . Hall 1986
• Orderly relationships? Disputes from the Thuringian state parliament . GNN Verlag, Schkeuditz 1996
• Take countermeasures! 1998
• Committed to opinion , GNN Verlag, Schkeuditz 2000. ISBN 3-89819-005-6
• About left homeland love. Texts around the turn of the millennium . edition ost, Berlin 2008. ISBN 978-3-360-01098-8
• 50 bridges. Anti-war speeches against the attack by NATO on Yugoslavia , edition ost, Berlin 2009. ISBN 978-3-897-93183-1

literature

• Helmut Müller-Enbergs :  Höpcke, Klaus . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Interview on Höpcke's time as a member of the state parliament in Thuringia in: Holger Zürch (ed.): With free people on free land . 15 years of the Thuringian Parliament in retrospect, former MPs from the founding years in the Free State of Thuringia. Self-publication by Engelsdorfer Verlag , Leipzig 2006, ISBN 978-3-939404-01-9 , p. 109-117 . - The interview with Klaus Höpcke can also be found online at Qucosa from page 50 in the free e-book version of this book.
• Conversation in: Holger Zürch: Thuringia's early years. Talks with Thuringian MPs about their time in the state parliament between 1990 and 1999. Erfurt 2004, ISBN 3-931426-85-8 (= Volume 20 of the Thuringia yesterday & today series , published by the Thuringia Regional Center for Civic Education )

Web links

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

• Literature by and about Klaus Höpcke in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Biographical Handbook of the 10th People's Chamber (1990)
2. ^ Cultural policy: censor as honest man . In: Der Spiegel . No. 43 , 1992 ( online ).