Otto Funke (politician)

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Otto Funke (born August 23, 1915 in Lennep ; † December 22, 1997 in Berlin ) was a German KPD and SED functionary as well as a functionary of the committee of anti-fascist resistance fighters of the GDR and the Fédération Internationale des Résistants .

Life

Otto Funke underground in the Werra potash district (1958)
Otto Funke (front) with Walter Ulbricht at the Seventh Party Congress of the SED (1967)

Funke, son of a working-class family, attended the Realgymnasium in Elberfeld until 1932 . In 1930 he became a member of the Socialist Workers' Youth and in 1931 of the Communist Youth Association of Germany (KJVD). In 1933 he joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). From February 1933 he participated in the resistance against National Socialism and was a member of the illegal sub-district leadership of the KJVD in Wuppertal and the KPD district leadership of the Lower Rhine . Funke was arrested in March 1935 and sentenced by the Hamm Higher Regional Court in July 1935 to two years in prison, which he spent in the prisons of Wuppertal , Moabit , Hamm and Wittlich . Dismissed in 1937, Funke trained as a technical employee at the Augsburg-Nuremberg machine factory in Düsseldorf from 1938 and worked there until 1944. Galt spark to 1944 even as unfit for military service , he was finally the Wehrmacht confiscated and fell into Norway in captivity .

When he returned to Germany, Funke was youth instructor for the KPD district leadership in Thuringia from November 1945 and from December 1945 to March 1946 he was state youth officer at the State Office for Public Education in Thuringia. In 1946 Funke became a member of the Free German Youth (FDJ) and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). From March 1946 to April 1949 he was organizational secretary and from April to September 1949 finally chairman of the FDJ regional leadership in Thuringia. From 1946 to 1955 Funke was also a member of the Central Council of the FDJ. From September 1949 to August 1952 he was second secretary of the SED state leadership in Thuringia, after the dissolution of the states from 1952 to 1955 first secretary of the SED district leadership Gera and from 1952 to 1956 member of the Gera district assembly. After studying at the party college of the CPSU in Moscow (1955/56), Funke was first secretary of the SED district leadership in Suhl from 1956 to 1968 , and from 1963 to 1969 at the same time a member of the Suhl district assembly. From 1958 to 1963 Funke was a candidate, from 1963 to 1989 he was a member of the Central Committee of the SED .

From 1969 he was deputy to the chief secretary, in 1971 he was himself chief secretary and from 1974 to 1989 chairman of the central management of the committee of anti-fascist resistance fighters in the GDR. Since 1972, Funke has also been Vice President of the Fédération Internationale des Résistants (FIR).

From 1950 to 1954 and from 1958 to 1989 Funke was a member of the People's Chamber .

Funke's older brother Ewald was executed on March 4, 1938 in Berlin-Plötzensee .

Fonts (selection)

  • On the application of Lenin's organizational principles in the SED . In: Einheit , Volume 8 (1953), No. 12, pp. 1373ff.
  • For an interesting and high-quality life in the basic organizations . In: Neuer Weg (1968), No. 1, pp. 1-6.

Awards

literature

Web links

Commons : Otto Funke  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Spark, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German KPD and SED functionary, MdV
DATE OF BIRTH August 23, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Lennep
DATE OF DEATH December 22, 1997
Place of death Berlin