Kurt Hager

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Kurt Hager (1984)
Kurt Hager (left) 1985 with the GDR writers Kant (2nd from left) and Hermlin (right)
Hager (2nd from right) in 1989 at the congress of entertainment art together with GDR artists

Kurt Hager (born July 24, 1912 in Bietigheim ; † September 18, 1998 in Berlin ), as a member of the Central Committee (ZK) and the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), played a key role in determining cultural and educational policy in the GDR . He was considered the chief ideologist of the SED.

Life

As the son of a worker, Hager graduated from high school in 1931 after attending elementary and secondary school. He was a member of the YMCA and the Socialist Student Union , worked as a journalist and joined the KPD in 1930 and the Red Front Fighters ' Union in 1932 . In 1933 he was involved in the disruption of Adolf Hitler's first speech on the radio ( Stuttgart cable attack ), was arrested and taken to the Heuberg concentration camp . After a short imprisonment, he emigrated in 1936.

Until 1937 he was u. a. worked as a courier for the Communist Youth Association of Germany in Switzerland, the ČSR and France. From 1937 to 1939 he took part in the Spanish Civil War as a journalist, where he worked for the German freedom broadcaster and the international program of Radio Madrid.

In 1939 he was interned in France and then emigrated to Great Britain . There he was active for the foreign organization of the KPD, wrote under the pseudonym Felix Albin , was then interned again as an enemy alien , first in Huyton , later on the Isle of Man . Then he became a member of the board of the Free German Movement in London and worked for the Free Tribune , from June 1945 he was its editor-in-chief.

In 1946 he returned to Berlin. He joined the SED, where he became head of the party training department and deputy editor-in-chief of Vorwärts , the Monday edition of New Germany published by the SED's regional association for Greater Berlin . Hager published his texts under the pseudonym "XYZ". In 1948 he completed a lectureship at the party college in Kleinmachnow , which qualified him as a full professor of philosophy at the Humboldt University in Berlin in 1949 .

In 1950 he became a candidate of the Central Committee of the SED and in 1952 head of the science department of the Central Committee of the SED. In 1954 he became a member and in 1955 secretary of the Central Committee of the SED. In this role he was responsible for science, popular education and culture. In 1959 he became a candidate and in 1963 a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED and head of the Politburo Ideological Commission. In 1958 he became a member of the People's Chamber and in 1967 chairman of its People's Education Committee. He was also a member of the State Council from 1976 to 1989 and a member of the National Defense Council from 1979 to 1989 . In the SED Politburo, Hager was regarded as the chief ideologist and chief cultural officer. In this role he was also responsible for Udo Lindenberg's performance ban . In a radio interview with the SFB on March 5, 1979, he had expressed his wish to organize a concert in East Berlin for his fans. The interview was recorded in the original sound in the GDR and sent to Kurt Hager as information from the State Committee for Broadcasting, Monitor Department . On March 9, 1979, Hager wrote in handwriting on the note: “Appearance in the GDR is out of the question”.

In speeches and writings, Hager denied the existence of a unified German cultural nation and a common German history. On April 9, 1987, in an interview with the German magazine Stern about Gorbachev's reforms in the Soviet Union , Hager answered:

"By the way, would you feel obliged to repackage your apartment as well, if your neighbor was repackaging his apartment?"

On April 10, 1987, the interview with the official rejection of the glasnost and perestroika policy in the Soviet Union appeared in the SED central organ Neues Deutschland . Both parts of the SED base and the rest of the population of the GDR expressed their displeasure with Kurt Hager by using the nickname "wallpaper cowl". Wolf Biermann also reviled him in his song Ballade of the corrupted old men .

At the 10th meeting of the Central Committee after the XI. At the SED party congress from November 8-10, 1989, Hager resigned from his functions. To Jan Carpentier , who was allowed to report from the Waldsiedlung (Bernau near Berlin) Wandlitz on November 23, 1989 as part of the GDR youth program ELF99 , Hager stated that he was involuntarily quartered here during the heyday of the Cold War. One had "bowed to the decisions of the party," said Hager in the presence of his wife. He described Wandlitz as the seventh internment camp he had come to.

On 20./21. January 1990 ended the SED Hagers membership, renamed the Socialist Unity Party of Germany - Party of Democratic Socialism (SED-PDS), through exclusion. In 1995 he joined the German Communist Party (DKP) in Berlin . In 1995, the Berlin Regional Court tried Hager in the Politburo trial because of the fatal shots at the German-German border , until a year later it suspended the proceedings because of his poor health.

Hager died in 1998. His grave is in the central cemetery in Berlin-Friedrichsfelde in the cemetery for the victims and persecuted of the Nazi regime .

He was married to Sabina Hager, b. Schauer (1912-2000). The Hager couple had two children: a son (* 1944) and their daughter Nina Hager .

Awards

Hager has received many awards in the GDR:

Fonts

  • László Rajk and accomplices before the People's Court. Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1949 (preface).
  • Dialectical materialism - the theoretical basis of the politics of the SED. Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1959.
  • Humanism and science. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1961.
  • To the spiritual situation of the present. Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1961.
  • The tasks of social science in our time. Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1969.
  • Basic questions of the spiritual life in socialism. Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1970.
  • Marxist-Leninist philosophy and ideological struggle. Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1970.
  • On the theory and politics of socialism. Speeches and essays. Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1972.
  • Socialism and the Scientific and Technical Revolution. Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1973.
  • Science and Technology in Socialism. Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1974.
  • The social sciences face new tasks. Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1981.
  • Contributions to cultural policy. Speeches and essays. Volume I: 1972 - 1981. Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1987. ISBN 3-320-01018-2 .
  • Contributions to cultural policy. Speeches and essays. Volume II: 1982 - 1986. Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1987. ISBN 3-320-01019-0 .
  • Science and Science Policy in Socialism. Lectures 1972 - 1987. Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1987. ISBN 3-320-01021-2 .
  • Continuity and change. Contributions to questions of our time. Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1989. ISBN 3-320-01421-8 .
  • Memories. Faber and Faber, Leipzig 1996. ISBN 3-92866-080-2 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Kurt Hager  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ They appeared in facsimile edition under the title: XYZ. The “forward” diary. Article from 1946–1948 published by Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1982.
  2. ^ Federal Archives - Culture and Art in the GDR - Order, Discussion and Change. (No longer available online.) In: bundesarchiv.de. Archived from the original on July 11, 2016 ; retrieved on January 9, 2017 : "Recording of an interview by the SFB with Udo Lindenberg on performances in the GDR on March 5, 1979"
  3. ↑ ELF 99 - Entry into Paradise ... (Wandlitz report) (video offline). In: veoh.com. Archived from the original on August 22, 2010 ; accessed on January 9, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Stefanie Hardick: Paradise Ost , accessed on May 28, 2019.
  5. ↑ Exclusion. The Politburo in front of the party court
  6. ^ Political parties: Red helmsman . In: Der Spiegel . No. 7 , 1996 ( online ).
  7. ^ Holde-Barbara Ulrich: Pain limit. 11 portraits in conversation. Bärbel Bohley, Sabina Hager, Heidrun Hegewald and others Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1991.
  8. ↑ Ingrid Schiborowski, Anita Kochnowski (ed.): Women and the Spanish War 1936-1939. A biographical documentation. Verlag am Park, Berlin 2016, 652 pp.
personal data
SURNAME Hager, Kurt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Albin, Felix
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (KPD, SED), MdV, member of the Central Committee and the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED
DATE OF BIRTH July 24, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Bietigheim
DATE OF DEATH September 18, 1998
Place of death Berlin