Kurt Prenzel

The title of this article is ambiguous. For persons with the same name, see Kurt Prenzel (disambiguation) .

Kurt Prenzel (born April 21, 1900 in Thiemendorf ; † November 17, 1976 in Berlin ) was a German politician and party functionary ( KPD / SED ) and diplomat . He was Lord Mayor of Görlitz and Ambassador of the GDR in the People's Republic of Albania .

Life

Prenzel learned the trade of metal grinder in Görlitz . Organized in a trade union since 1916 , he became a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1923. From 1923 he was manager of the Görlitz metal works and from 1929 city ​​councilor in Görlitz. In 1931/32 he attended the International Lenin School of the Comintern in Moscow . In 1932 he became a member of the KPD district leadership in Wroclaw .

After the " seizure " of the Nazis in 1933 he was arrested and the KZ Esterwegen spent. In 1934 he was sentenced to two years in prison for " high treason ". After his release from prison he worked in a Görlitz foundry in 1936/1937, was arrested again in 1937 and imprisoned for ten weeks. After his release from prison, Prenzel emigrated to the Soviet Union . He later returned to Germany and was arrested in 1944 in connection with the " Operation Grid " and imprisoned until 1945.

From 1945 he was a member of the KPD again, in 1946 he became a member of the SED. From May 1945 to 1946 he worked as mayor and then from January 1946 to August 1950 as Lord Mayor of the city of Görlitz. From December 1948 he was also a member of the Saxon state parliament .

1950 Prenzel became an employee in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the GDR (MfAA). From 1950 to 1955 he was head of the main department “Consular Affairs” and from 1950 to 1953 he was also head of main department II (other countries, ie non-socialist countries) in the MfAA. From 1951 to 1953 he also headed the government commission for marking the Oder-Neisse border . From November 1955 to August 1960, Prenzel was the GDR's ambassador in Tirana . From 1960 he was administrative director in the MfAA and a member of the college. He last lived in Eichwalde .

Awards and honors

• Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze (1955) and gold (1960)
• Labor Banner (1960)
• Medal for fighters against fascism 1933 to 1945
• Badge of honor of the Society for German-Soviet Friendship
• On the occasion of the 900th anniversary of Görlitz, Prenzel received honorary citizenship of the city of Görlitz on June 12, 1971 . The 19th POS in Görlitz was named after him, the building on Windmühlenweg now houses the Görlitz special needs school center.

literature

• Federal Ministry for All-German Issues (Ed.): SBZ biography . Deutscher Bundes-Verlag, Berlin 1964, p. 272.
• Walter Habel (Ed.): Who is who? The German who's who . Volume II. Arani-Verlag, Berlin-Grunewald 1965, p. 255.
• Gabriele Baumgartner: Prenzel, Kurt . In: dies., Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990 . Volume 2: Maassen - Zylla . KG Saur, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-598-11177-0 , p. 667.
• Walther Killy , Rudolf Vierhaus (ed.): German Biographical Encyclopedia . Volume 8: Plett - Schmidseder . Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-23168-7 , pp. 68f.
• Jeanette Michelmann: Activists from the very beginning. The Antifa in the Soviet zone of occupation . Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-412-04602-7 , p. 169.
• Siegfried Bock , Ingrid Muth , Hermann Schwiesau: The GDR foreign policy, an overview. Data, facts, people (III) . LIT Verlag Dr. W. Hopf, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-643-10559-2 , p. 342.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Obituary notice in Neues Deutschland from November 20, 1976.
2. ↑ Honorary Citizen of the City of Görlitz ( Memento of the original from November 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.