Max Fritsch

Max Fritsch (born December 20, 1903 in Weißstein ; † January 6, 1962 ) was a German trade unionist and politician ( SED ). He was a member of the People's Chamber and State Secretary in the GDR .

Life

Fritsch, the son of a miner, became a farm worker and miner after attending primary school. He became a member of the miners' association in 1919, the KJVD in 1922 and the KPD in 1923 . In the Ruhr area he worked in mining and was elected a member of the works council. He took part in the battles against the Ruhr and was imprisoned in a French military prison. He took part in organizing strikes and was expelled from the miners' association in 1928. Due to his good propaganda skills, he was appointed to the editorial team of the KPD newspaper Ruhr-Echo in 1931 . He was temporarily head of the Dortmund local editorial team.

After 1933 he did illegal work for the KPD in the Ruhr area, was arrested in 1934 and sentenced to two years in prison for “preparing for high treason”. He spent his imprisonment in the Abelitzmoor penal camp in East Frisia. After his release in 1936 he worked again as a miner in Silesia and again did illegal resistance work.

After the war he became a member of the KPD again and took part in a course at an SMA school in Upper Silesia. He then moved to the Soviet occupation zone . He became a member of the SED and the FDGB . From 1945 to 1949 he was the first chairman of IG Bergbau in the state of Saxony-Anhalt and from April 1949 to May 1951 he was Paul Lähne's first chairman of the central executive committee of the mining industry union . From May 1949 to June 1955 he was a member of the FDGB federal executive committee. From October 1950 to 1954 he was a member of the FDGB parliamentary group in the People's Chamber . In May 1951 he was appointed as the successor to Gustav Sobottka as head of the main coal department of the Ministry of Heavy Industry. At the beginning of November 1951 he was appointed State Secretary for Coal and Energy by the Council of Ministers of the GDR with his own area of ​​responsibility and sworn in on November 5, 1951 by the President of the GDR, Wilhelm Pieck . Later he was made responsible for bottlenecks in the energy supply. In January 1953 he was given a party penalty. In April 1953 the department for energy was withdrawn from him and Heinz Adler was appointed first deputy to the state secretary in the newly created state secretariat for energy. Fritsch then served as State Secretary for Coal until he was released from his position in March 1954. He was then deputy editor-in-chief and member of the editorial board of the weekly newspaper Die Wirtschaft until his death .

Awards

• 1951 Medal for services to mine rescue
• Activist of the Five Year Plan
• 1958 and 1959 medals for excellent performance
• Medal for participation in the armed struggles of the German working class from 1918 to 1923
• 1958 medal for fighters against fascism 1933 to 1945
• 1960 Fritz Heckert Medal

literature

• Martin Broszat , Hermann Weber (Ed.): SBZ manual. State administrations, parties, social organizations and their executives in the Soviet zone of occupation in Germany 1945–1949 , Oldenbourg, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-486-55261-9 , p. 903.
• 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. 200 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
• Andreas Herbst : Fritsch, Max. 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 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ New State Secretaries sworn in . In: Neue Zeit , November 6, 1951, p. 2.
2. ^ Minutes of the 124th meeting of the government of the GDR on April 30, 1953 - BArch DC 20-I / 3/187.
3. ^ Minutes of the 156th meeting of the government of the GDR on March 18, 1954 - BArch DC 20-I / 3/220.