East office

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After the parties and trade unions in the GDR had been subordinated to the primacy of the SED , eastern offices of these organizations were set up in West Germany , as legal opposition work was no longer possible. The east offices served as the organizational basis for party leaders and members who had fled or emigrated to West Germany to continue their work.

description

The main tasks of the east office were

  • the coordination of resistance work against undemocratic measures and human rights violations in the Soviet occupation zone and GDR
  • The care of the members and their relatives who have been sentenced to prison because of their political opinion or activities
  • Continuation of political or trade union activity even after the capture ( SPD , DGB) or the loss of political independence (CDU, LDPD) in the East
  • Public relations in the west and the attempt to create a counter- public in the east
  • Taking care of refugees from the GDR

The work of the east offices was illegal in the Soviet Zone / GDR and the Eastern Bloc . During the time of the Soviet occupation (up to 1949) and occasionally up to the 1950s, assisted workers captured in the eastern offices were tried by Soviet military tribunals. In order to prosecute actual (or only alleged) contacts with representatives of the East German offices, the GDR had included its own section 219 in the GDR 's penal code , which made “illegal contacting” a punishable offense.

Individual east offices

Known employees or assistants in the eastern offices

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ulrich Weissgerber: Poisonous words of the SED dictatorship. LIT Verlag Münster, 2010, ISBN 9783643104298 , p. 233. Restricted preview in the Google book search