Max Ernst Opitz
Max Ernst Opitz (born September 11, 1890 in Bernsdorf ; † January 7, 1982 in East Berlin ) was a German local politician ( SED ) and from 1949 to 1951 Lord Mayor of Leipzig .
Life
The son of a miner completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter after attending primary school from 1905 to 1908. In 1911 he was called up for military service and served seven years in Uhlan Regiment No. 21. During the First World War , he was wounded several times. In November 1918 he was elected to the soldiers' council of his regiment. After his discharge from the German Army , he became a co-founder of the local group of the KPD in Gersdorf in February 1919 . In 1920 he moved to Chemnitz and became chairman of the KPD district west.
From 1923 Opitz headed the KPD Erzgebirge / Vogtland , KPD Niederrhein , KPD Hessen- Frankfurt, KPD Ruhr and KPD Württemberg as a Pol.-Secretary. From 1926 to 1930 he was a member of the Saxon state parliament , from 1926 to 1929 he was parliamentary group leader of the KPD. In 1932/33 Opitz belonged to the Prussian state parliament .
On February 7, 1933, Opitz took part in the illegal meeting of the Central Committee of the KPD in the sports store Ziegenhals near Berlin. On March 5, 1933, he was elected to the Reichstag , but like all KPD members, he was unable to exercise his mandate due to the party's ban and the cancellation of all KPD mandates. He then directed the illegal work of the KPD in Dortmund and Stuttgart. On November 2, 1933, he was arrested in Stuttgart and sentenced in 1934 to three years and one month in prison for preparing for high treason . In another trial in November 1937 he was sentenced to four years in prison for manslaughter . After serving his prison sentence, he was transferred by the Gestapo to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in October 1941 . On May 1, 1945, he was liberated by the Red Army near Flecken Zechlin during a death march .
Opitz returned to Saxony and participated in the formation of the new KPD Saxony. From July 1945 to April 1949 he was police chief in Dresden . In 1946 he became a member of the SED. From May 18, 1949 to June 5, 1951, he was Lord Mayor of Leipzig . In June 1951 Wilhelm Pieck made him head of the presidential chancellery and state secretary . He held this position until Pieck's death in 1960. From 1950 to 1963 he was a member of the People's Chamber of the GDR and a member or until 1967 deputy chairman of the GDR Interparliamentary Group. After his retirement he worked as a member of the central management of the committee of the anti-fascist resistance fighters of the GDR.
His urn was in the grave conditioning Pergolenweg the memorial of the socialists at the Berlin Central Cemetery Friedrichsfelde buried.
Awards
- 1954 Patriotic Order of Merit in silver and in 1959, 1965 and 1970 in gold
- 1955 Decoration of Honor of the German People's Police
- 1958 medal for fighters against fascism 1933 to 1945
- 1960 Karl Marx Order
- 1975 Gold medal for the Patriotic Order of Merit
literature
- Heike Amos: Opitz, Max. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , p. 554 ( digitized version ).
- Andreas Herbst , Helmut Müller-Enbergs : Opitz, Max . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
- Klaus Kühnel: "I was happy". Max Opitz (September 11, 1890 / January 7, 1982) , trafo verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-89626-282-0 (biography authorized by Opitz).
- Handbook of the People's Chamber of the German Democratic Republic, 3rd electoral period, Kongress-Verlag Berlin, 1959.
- The People's Chamber of the German Democratic Republic, 4th electoral period, Staatsverlag der DDR Berlin, 1964, p. 158.
Web links
- Literature by and about Max Ernst Opitz in the catalog of the German National Library
- Short biography
Individual evidence
- ↑ List of participants
- ^ New Germany of February 25, 1967
Otto Georgi (1877–1899) | Carl Bruno Tröndlin (1899–1908) | Rudolf Dittrich (1908–1917) | Karl Rothe (1918–1930) | Carl Friedrich Goerdeler (1930–1937) | Rudolf Haake (1937) | Walter Dönicke (1937–1938) | Rudolf Haake (1938–1939) | Alfred Freyberg (1939–1945) | Wilhelm Johannes Vierling (1945) | Erich Zeigner (1945–1949) | Max Ernst Opitz (1949–1951) | Erich Uhlich (1951–1959) | Walter Kresse (1959–1970) | Karl-Heinz Müller (1970–1986) | Bernd Seidel (1986–1989) | Günter Hädrich (1989–1990) | Hinrich Lehmann-Grube (1990–1998) | Wolfgang Tiefensee (1998–2005) | Andreas Müller (2005–2006) | Burkhard Jung (since 2006)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Opitz, Max Ernst |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German politician (KPD, SED), MdR, MdV and Lord Mayor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 11, 1890 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bernsdorf |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 7, 1982 |
| Place of death | Berlin |