Kurt Riemer (politician)

Kurt Riemer (born January 28, 1909 in Berlin-Schöneberg ; † November 30, 2004 ) was a German politician ( SED ), economic functionary and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Riemer, the son of a train driver and a maid , attended elementary school from 1915 to 1926 and learned the trade of toolmaker at Siemens AG from 1923 to 1927 . There he was dismissed in 1928, from December 1929 he worked as a fitter and from 1932 in toolmaking at Osram GmbH in Berlin-Moabit . From 1925 Riemer was unionized in the German Metal Workers' Association (DMV), in 1931 he joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO). At Osram he met Robert Uhrig . From 1932 he headed the KPD's cell together with him. Riemer also took part in the production of the newspaper "Rote Osram-Lampe".

Immediately after the National Socialists "seized power " in 1933, Riemer took part in the resistance against the Nazi regime. He was arrested for the first time on January 10, 1934. He was first taken to the Maikowski House of the SA in Berlin-Charlottenburg , and later to the Columbiahaus concentration camp in Berlin-Tempelhof . After a few weeks, Riemer was released. In mid-January 1936 he met with Robert Uhrig, who had been given two days' imprisonment leave for the funeral of his wife. Since the beginning of 1937 Riemer was employed by the Kiese company in Berlin-Neukölln . There he had contact with Gisela Mannaberg - the sister of Hans-Georg Mannaberg - and Fritz Selke . In 1938 Riemer (code name "Oskar") became a member of the management of the Uhrig organization. After Uhrig's arrest in 1942, he also took over its management. Riemer took part in training courses disguised as a choral society about every two weeks in an apartment on Siegfriedstrasse in Berlin-Lichtenberg . From 1938 he lived in Blankenfelde near Berlin. From the end of 1938 he worked for the company Dr. Thiedig & Co., a special company for gauge construction and production of parts for fuel pumps for fighter planes in Berlin-Kreuzberg . He headed the resistance group there. In 1940, Riemer and others organized a strike to improve working conditions. In the summer of 1940 he got in touch with the resistance group around Herbert Baum through Hildegard Jadamowitz . He was arrested again on September 9, 1943. Initially imprisoned in the Lehrter Strasse prison in Berlin-Tiergarten , he was taken to Sachsenhausen concentration camp on October 25, 1943 . In April 1945 he was able to flee to Crivitz during the evacuation march .

From May to December 1945 he was first mayor of Telschow (Ostprignitz district) and then from January to April 1946 he worked as a toolmaker at AEG Brunnenstrasse in Berlin-Wedding . In 1946 he became a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). From May 1946 to 1948 he worked as a clerk or head of the department for checking foreign assets at the Central Commission for Sequestration and Seizure. In April 1948 he became head of department in the “Committee for the Protection of Public Property” of the German Economic Commission (DWK) and was responsible for investigating foreign assets. From June to November 1949 he headed the DWK's cadre department and from November 1949 to the end of September 1951 the main personnel department of the Ministry of the Interior . In 1949/50 Riemer was a member of the Central Party Control Commission of the SED.

From October to December 1951 he was an assistant at VEB Stahl- und Walzwerk Riesa . From January 1952, Riemer worked initially as acting director, then from March 1952 to 1956 as director of Eisenwerke West in Calbe (Saale) . From 1956 to 1958 he was head of the main administration for the iron industry in the Ministry of Mining and Metallurgy of the GDR.

In 1958/59 Riemer acted as first chairman of the Magdeburg District Economic Council and was a member of the office of the SED district leadership in Magdeburg. From 1958 to 1963 he was a member of the Magdeburg District Assembly .

From 1958 to 1963 Riemer was a candidate for the Central Committee of the SED . In 1959/60 he acted as sector manager for black metallurgy in the State Planning Commission (SPK). From 1960 he was head of the cadre department of the SPK, from 1961 to 1965 then head of the cadre department in the GDR Economic Council . From 1965 to 1971 he was deputy head of the management department in the Ministry of Ore Mining, Metallurgy and Potash .

Riemer was a member of the Berlin district committee of the anti-fascist resistance fighters and a permanent representative of the GDR in the International Sachsenhausen Committee .

Awards

• Order " Banner of Labor " (1956)
• Patriotic Order of Merit in silver (1959, 1965) and in gold (1969)
• Bar of Honor for the Patriotic Order of Merit (1974)
• Karl Marx Order (1984)

literature

• Federal Ministry for All-German Issues (Ed.): SBZ biography . Deutscher Bundes-Verlag, Berlin 1964, p. 284.
• Walter Habel (Ed.): Who is who? The German who's who . Part II. Arani-Verlag, Berlin-Grunewald 1965, p. 272.
• 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 Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-486-55261-9 , p. 1005.
• Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990 . Volume 2: Maassen - Zylla . KG Saur, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-598-11177-0 , p. 717.
• Hans-Joachim Fieber et al. (Ed.): Resistance in Berlin against the Nazi regime 1933 to 1945. A biographical lexicon . Volume 6 [P-R]. Trafo Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-89626-356-0 , p. 155.
• Andreas Herbst :  Riemer, Kurt . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .