Leander Kröber

Leander Kröber (* 21st August 1902 in Schnauderhainichen ; † 9. June 1980 in Erfurt ) was a German social democratic Bergmann and Communist Party official , Thuringian state representative , persecuted by the Nazi regime , prisoner in a concentration camp Nohra , KZ Bad Sulza and Buchenwald , Thuringia Police chief , colonel of the Stasi and commander of a border brigade of the German border police .

Life

Kröber came from a working class family in Altenburger Land . His father was a miner. From 1909 to 1917 he attended elementary school in his place of birth. Like his father, he worked as a miner from 1917 to 1932. In 1921 he joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) and after its dissolution switched to the SPD . From 1923 he belonged to the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). His professional biography also included periods of unemployment . Kröber took an active part in party work and in the fight against the danger of the emerging fascism . In 1932 he was elected to the district leadership of the KPD Greater Thuringia and ran for election to the Thuringian state parliament , to which he had been a member since May 27, 1932.

After the transfer of power to the NSDAP , he was one of the five communist members of the state parliament in Thuringia who were arrested on February 28, 1933 and sent to the first concentration camp in the German Reich , the Nohra concentration camp. Between November and the beginning of December 1933, Kröber was one of those who were transferred to the newly established Bad Sulza concentration camp, where he was given prisoner number 24. After he was released in 1934, he continued his illegal resistance work. When this activity was discovered, the Gestapo arrested him again on March 27, 1935. The 1st Criminal Senate of the Jena Higher Regional Court sentenced him in October of the same year for “preparing for high treason ” to seven years in prison and five years of loss of honor . After his term of imprisonment, which he served in the penitentiaries of Gräfentonna , Halle , Amberg and Straubing , was taken into protective custody in April 1942 and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. From 1943 he was employed in the Schönebeck concentration camp external command , where he headed the sick department.

After the liberation from Nazi rule in the spring of 1945, he returned to Thuringia, where he worked for the reconstruction of the KPD and again belonged to the extended KPD state leadership. From April to December 1945 he held the office of Mayor of Meuselwitz . He then became police director in Eisenach for two years . Since 1947, as a police inspector, he took over control of the police forces in South and West Thuringia, based in Gotha . In April 1948 he was appointed head of the state police school in Weimar and in October 1948 he rose to the rank of chief inspector to the state police chief of Thuringia. In 1949/1950 Kröber took part in a special training course for MfS founding cadres in the USSR . and went to the Soviet Union , where he was prepared for his future role in the GDR security organization MfS in a special course. After his return in 1950 he was initially deputy and in 1951 head of the Thuringian MfS regional administration. He specifically influenced the newly created judiciary and in May 1952 appointed five judges for the Thuringian judiciary. In 1952 he moved to the management of the Chemnitz MfS district administration. In March 1953, the GDR Interior Minister Willi Stoph brought him to Berlin as an adjutant for special use . From 1955 he headed the Central School of the German Border Police in Sondershausen . From 1958 he was in the rank of colonel, the commander of the Third Border Brigade of the German Border Police in Erfurt. In 1960 he retired from active service.

Awards

• 1972 Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold
• 1977 Gold Medal for the Patriotic Order of Merit

literature

• Andrea Herz and Wolfgang Fiege: Detention and Political Police in Thuringia 1945–52. On the history of the MfS detention center Erfurt – Andreasstraße , Erfurt 2002, ISBN 3-932303-34-2
• Short biography for:  Kröber, Leander . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Andreas Herbst (eds.), Winfried Ranke, Jürgen Winkler: This is how the GDR worked. Volume 3: Lexicon of functionaries (= rororo manual. Vol. 6350). Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-499-16350-0 , pp. 189-190.
• Roger Engelmann , Bernd Florath , Helge Heidemeyer, Daniela Münkel , Arno Polzin, Walter Süß : The MfS Lexicon. 3rd updated edition, Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86153-900-1 , p. 215, online version .

Web links

• MfS lexicon: Leander Kröber

Individual evidence

1. ↑ KPD delegates - KPD delegates - KPD Thuringia. (No longer available online.) In: kpdabussye.wg.vu. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on January 2, 2015 . 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.  
2. ↑ Martin Broszat: SBZ manual. Oldenbourg, 1993, ISBN 978-3-486-55262-1 , p. 458. Restricted preview in the Google book search
3. ↑ Biographical databases KRÖBER, LEANDER
4. ^ Petra Weber: Justice and Dictatorship. Oldenbourg, 2000, ISBN 978-3-486-56463-1 , p. 306. Restricted preview in Google Book Search