Kurt Helbig (politician)

Kurt Helbig (born April 25, 1919 in Derenburg ; † February 21, 1996 in Berlin ) was a German trade unionist and politician . From 1954 to 1958 he was a member of the Central Committee of the SED .

Life

Helbig, the son of a carpenter, learned the profession of typesetter from 1933 after attending elementary school. He became a member of the Workers 'Gymnastics and Sports Club in 1929 and was a member of the Socialist Workers' Youth (SAJ) from 1930 to 1932 .

After 1933 he was anti-fascist. Because of political discussions at work, he was arrested by the Gestapo in 1937 and later sentenced to one year in prison for violating the treachery law . In 1942 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht as a soldier . A short time after his arrival on the Eastern Front, he defected to the Red Army in November 1943 and was taken prisoner by the Soviets. From 1944 to 1945 he attended an anti-fascist school and stayed there for a short time as an assistant. Afterwards he was a course student and from 1946 to 1948 a teacher at the Central Anti-Fascist School of the Soviet Union.

After his return to Germany in the Soviet zone of occupation , he became a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and the FDGB . He was initially employed in the economic policy department of the FDGB Federal Board (BuV) and took over the management of the training department at the FDGB-BuV on June 1, 1949. From 1950 to March 1959 he acted as secretary and from 1952 to March 1959 as a member of the presidium of the FDGB federal executive committee. From 1954 to 1958 he was a member of the Central Committee of the SED.

After his dismissal from all functions of the FDGB, he was secretary for economic issues of the SED district leadership in Berlin-Weißensee until 1960 . From May 1960 to October 1976 he was Hermann Gloth's successor as the City Councilor for Internal Affairs and Deputy Mayor of Berlin, and from 1963 to 1976 he was a member of the Berlin City Council .

From December 1976 to 1990 he was secretary of the central management of the committee of anti-fascist resistance fighters (successor to Willy Perk ).

Awards

• 1976 and 1979 Patriotic Order of Merit in silver
• Medal for fighters against fascism 1933 to 1945
• Fritz Heckert Medal

literature

• Gerd-Rüdiger Stephan, Andreas Herbst , Christine Krauss, Daniel Küchenmeister (eds.): The parties and organizations of the GDR: A manual, Dietz Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-320-01988-0 , p. 964.
• Andreas Herbst: Kurt Helbig . In: Dieter Dowe , Karlheinz Kuba, Manfred Wilke (Hrsg.): FDGB-Lexikon. Function, structure, cadre and development of a mass organization of the SED (1945–1990) . Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86872-240-6 .
• Helmut Müller-Enbergs :  Kurt Helbig . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .