Kurt Kühn (politician)

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Kurt Kühn (born June 19, 1898 in Merseburg , † January 23, 1963 ) was a German trade unionist , politician ( KPD / SED ) and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime .

Life

Bold, son of a brick master, attended elementary and middle school. He learned the profession of electrician. In April 1915 he became a member of the German Metalworkers' Association . In 1916 he was drafted into the Navy . As a sailor, he took part in several sea battles. On November 3, 1918, Kühn was actively involved in the Kiel sailors' uprising. After returning to Merseburg, he joined the SPD in 1919 . He worked as a union and party functionary in the Leunawerk . In 1920 he took part in the strike against the Kapp Putsch . In 1923 he joined the KPD. From 1924 he was a member of the KPD district leadership Halle-Merseburg and city councilor in Merseburg. From 1927 to 1933 he worked as an editor for the KPD newspaper Klassenkampf in Halle (Saale) and was a member of the Provincial Parliament of the Province of Saxony . In 1932/33 he was RGO district manager and member of the secretariat of the KPD district leadership in Halle-Merseburg.

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists in 1933, Kühn took part in the communist resistance. From 1933 he headed the Hamburg-Wasserkante district of the now illegal RGO, and from January 1934 he was head of the RGO Berlin . He was arrested in February 1934 and sentenced on April 26, 1934 by the Berlin Superior Court to six years in prison. He was imprisoned in Brandenburg prison and from March 1937 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp . After his release in June 1939, Kühn worked again as an electrician and resumed his resistance work. He was connected to the resistance group around Georg Schumann . On August 17, 1944, Kühn was arrested again and a case against him for “preparation for high treason ” was initiated. He remained in custody in Leipzig and Dresden until March 20, 1945 .

From 1945 he was again a member of the KPD, from 1946 of the SED. From 1946 to 1950 Kühn was a member of the Saxon state parliament and its third vice-president. From 1948 to 1954 he was a member of the People's Council or the People's Chamber .

In 1947/1948 he was second, from 1948 to 1950 first chairman of the FDGB state board of Saxony. From July 1950 to 1952 he was chairman of the central board of IG Chemie in the FDGB. From 1952 to 1955 he was a member of the secretariat of the FDGB federal board, 1952/53 he worked as secretary for all-German work, from September 1953 as deputy editor-in-chief of the FDGB monthly Die Arbeit . From 1955 he headed the press office of the FDGB federal board.

After a heart attack , Kühn retired from professional life and moved to Leipzig, where he worked on a biography of his friend and colleague Georg Schumann. Kühn did not live to see it, however, because he died on January 23, 1963 at the age of 64.

Private

His son was the painter and graphic artist Kurt-Hermann Kühn (1926–1989).

Fonts (selection)

  • The last round. Resistance group NKFD . VVN-Verlag, Berlin, Potsdam 1949.
  • Forge the unity of action of the chemical workers in the fight for peace! Grandstand, Berlin 1952.
  • The uprising in the German high seas and my way to the party . In: Working group of merited trade union veterans at the federal executive board of the FDGB (ed.): 1918. Memories of veterans of the German trade union movement of the November Revolution. Berlin (East) 1958 (Contributions to the History of the German Trade Union Movement Volume 1. The November Revolution of 1918 and the German Trade Unions, 2nd half volume) pp. 221–252.
  • Georg Schumann. A biography . Dietz, Berlin 1965.
  • The Kiel sailors' uprising . In: Albrecht, Günther (ed.): Experienced history seen and described by contemporaries . First part: From the Empire to the Weimar Republic . 2nd Edition. Berlin 1968, pp. 178-181. (The article was also reprinted in: Boehncke, Heiner: Vorwärts and not forgotten. A reading book . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1973, pp. 17-20.)

Awards

literature

  • Martin Broszat et al. (Ed.): SBZ manual: State administrations, parties, social organizations and their executives in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany 1945–1949 . Oldenbourg, Munich 1993, p. 958.
  • Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990. Volume 1: Abendroth - Lyr. KG Saur, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-598-11176-2 , p. 447.
  • Achim Arndt: Kühn, Kurt (1898–1963) . In: Siegfried Mielke (ed.): Trade unionists in the concentration camps Oranienburg and Sachsenhausen. Biographical manual . Volume 1. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 2002, p. 227f.
  • Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 , pp. 508 ( online ).
  • Andreas Herbst: Kühn, Kurt. 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.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry: Kühn, Kurt-Herman n on the page of the Friends & Sponsors of Wilhelmshorster Ortsgeschichte eV
personal data
SURNAME Bold, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German resistance fighters against National Socialism, politicians (KPD, SED), MdV and trade unionists
DATE OF BIRTH June 19, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Merseburg
DATE OF DEATH January 23, 1963