East office of the DGB
The East Bureau of the DGB was on 1 September 1951 by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) in West Berlin and Dusseldorf furnished. The task was to coordinate the anti-communist resistance work against the state unions in Eastern Europe, especially the FDGB of the GDR. In the early years this facility was financed by the IBFG and the DGB, and since 1959 as part of the DGB board administration exclusively by the DGB. At the beginning of the 1970s the department was closed.
The first director was Gerhard Haas . There was close cooperation with the SPD East Office . The head of the SPD East Office at the time, Stephan G. Thomas, reorganized the DGB East Office at the request of DGB Chairman Willi Richter . In 1959, the east office of the DGB was then renamed "Reunification Section on the Board of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB)". Wilhelm Gronau became the head of the department . The last head was Johannes Naber .
The east office was controversial within the union. Left-wing critics called it the "Hort Kalter Krieger".
In addition to supporting opposition trade unionists in the GDR and obtaining information from the FDGB and companies in the GDR, the DGB's east office was also active in refugee care in the refugee camp in Berlin-Marienfelde . The east office of the DGB regularly exchanged information with the east offices of the CDU and SPD and the constitution protection authorities . Since the beginning of the 1960s, the department also acted as the security department of the DGB federal board administration.
In connection with the popular uprising of June 17, 1953 , the British military government in Berlin came to the conclusion that the DGB East Office (in West Berlin) and the RIAS in particular had done their best "to stir up resistance to the increase in standards "
From an assessment of the situation by Erich Mielke on June 20, 1961: "... In the schools of the DGB and the SPD there is a great deal of activity to" ward off communist infiltration "and to train agents and divers in the working class ..."
The GDR viewed the DGB-Ostbüro as a “diversionary body” . Like the eastern offices of the parties, the trade union institution was systematically monitored and infiltrated by the GDR Ministry for State Security . Within the MfS, the east office of the DGB was processed by the HVA under the direction of Paul Laufer , whose top source was IM Steiger Willi Gronau (born September 23, 1914).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Letter from Stephen JL Olver, employee of the political branch of the British military government in Berlin, to Peter Hope at the British High Commissioner in Wahnerheide, June 19, 1953 , at www.17juni53.de, accessed on October 9, 2018 (PDF; 13 kB)