Ministry of Coal and Energy

The Ministry for Coal and Energy ( MfKE or MKE for short ) was the energy ministry and the highest authority for hard and lignite mining in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). As one of the ministries of the GDR Council of Ministers, it coordinated the GDR 's energy industry and energy policy .

history

There was a ministry for coal and energy twice in the history of the GDR, the first time from 1955 to 1958 and the second time from 1972 to 1989:

Phase 1 (1955–1958)

Before 1955, responsibility for the GDR's energy industry and policy had changed in quick succession: The foundations were laid by the Coal and Energy Department of the German Economic Commission established by the Soviet military administration in 1947 . When the GDR was founded in 1949, the department was transferred to the Ministry of Industry , which in 1950 became the Ministry of Heavy Industry . In 1951 the department was outsourced to a State Secretariat for Coal and Energy , which in 1953 was split into two independent State Secretariats for Coal and Energy. Subordinate to the State Secretariat were the Associations of People's Own Enterprises (VVB) from the coal and energy sectors, which were replaced in 1952 by the Administration of People's Own Enterprises (VwVB) of the energy industry . In 1953 the department returned to the newly established Ministry of Heavy Industry.

In 1955 the Coal and Energy Department was separated from the Ministry of Heavy Industry and transferred to its own Ministry for Coal and Energy for the first time . Less than three years later, in 1958, the MfKE was dissolved again in the course of the new economic system of planning and management and the energy industry was subordinated to the central economics council .

Phase 2 (1971–1989)

As a consequence of the dissolution of the National Economic Council in 1965, the ministries of the economic sectors were established. Here the coal and energy department was initially a department of the Ministry of Basic Industry ; in 1972 the MfKE was formally again an independent ministry. It was from that time until 1989, when it with the Ministry of heavy machinery and plant for the Ministry of Heavy Industry has been summarized. After the fall of the Wall , the energy department was redistributed to the Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Energy and Nuclear Safety and the Ministry for Economic Affairs for a short time until German reunification in the de Maizière government .

minister

During the two phases of its existence, the MfKE had the following ministers:

• Richard Goschütz (1956–1958)
• Klaus Siebold (1971–1979)
• Wolfgang Mitzinger (1979–1989)

tasks

Among the most important tasks were

• Management and planning of the industrial area.
• Cooperation with the party and state apparatus.
• Instructions for the combines.
• Establishment and development of businesses.
• Generation, storage and distribution of energy and coal.
• Collaboration in Comecon.

Since the money and the technical and logistical possibilities were very limited in the planned economy of the GDR for the import of goods, the use of the domestic energy resource stores became of central importance. The following should be mentioned in particular:

• the lignite from Central Germany and the Lusatian lignite area
• the coal from the Saxon districts of Döhlen / Freital , Lugau-Oelsnitz and Zwickau .

More than three quarters of the GDR's primary energy consumption was covered by domestic coal. The Ministry of Coal and Energy was responsible for the various state- owned companies and combines that were engaged in the extraction and utilization of these coal stocks. These include, in particular, the mine and opencast mining operations with the connected coal-fired power plants , briquette factories , coking plants , gas and smoldering plants and liquefaction plants for the production of fuel and synthetic oils. The MfKE was also responsible for the associated mechanical and plant engineering (in particular the coal and energy construction and assembly plant ). In addition, the Ministry was responsible for the State Energy Inspectorate formed in 1971 .

A second, much smaller focus of the work of the MfKE besides coal was the expansion of nuclear energy . Here, too, the GDR had valuable domestic resources with the uranium reserves in Saxony and Thuringia, which were exploited by the SDAG Wismut and used with the help of Soviet nuclear technology to generate electricity in the GDR nuclear power plants in Lubmin and Rheinsberg , as well as in the planned nuclear power plant in Stendal .

From the mid-1960s onwards, more and more crude oil and natural gas were imported, especially via pipelines ( oil pipeline and natural gas pipeline friendship ) from the Soviet Union and via ship from countries such as Egypt, Iraq, Algeria and Syria.

The energy combines were also subordinate to the ministry .

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} Felix Christian Matthes: Electricity industry and German unit: a case study on the transformation of the electricity industry in East Germany (Volume 1 of Edition Energie + Umwelt ), Verlag BoD - Books on Demand , 2000, ISBN 3-89811-806-1 , ISBN 978-3-89811-806-4 , extracts online on Google Books
2. ↑ Falk Beyer: Energy Policy of the GDR , online at www.gruenes-blatt.de (accessed on March 2, 2010)
3. ↑ Agenda of the 10th meeting of the People's Chamber on Jan. 18, 1956, available online on the Federal Archives website ( www.bundesarchiv.de )
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (Ed.): The GDR's Energy Policy - Defects Management Between Nuclear Power and Lignite , Verlag Neue Gesellschaft GmbH, Bonn, 1988, online at epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de (PDF file; 4.9 MB)