Otto Grotewohl

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Otto Grotewohl (1950)

Otto Emil Franz Grotewohl (born March 11, 1894 in Braunschweig , † September 21, 1964 in East Berlin ) was a German politician ( SPD , SED from 1946 ). From 1949 to 1964 he was Prime Minister of the German Democratic Republic .

Life

Memorial plaque on the house, Majakowskiring 46, in Berlin-Niederschönhausen
Grotewohl on a 20-mark commemorative GDR coin from 1973
Memorial plaque on the former Jonaß department store in Berlin

Before 1933

From 1908 to 1912 he learned the printing trade. After completing his apprenticeship, Grotewohl joined the Association of German Book Printers and the SPD. In World War I he was wounded several times. From 1918 to 1922 Grotewohl belonged to the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), for which he was elected to the 2nd Landtag of the Free State of Braunschweig in 1920, to which he later belonged for the SPD until 1926. In the short-lived Antrick cabinet (March 28 to May 22, 1922, SPD / USPD coalition) he was Minister of Justice and Public Education; in the Jasper II cabinet (May 23, 1922 to December 24, 1924) he was Minister of Justice from February 1923. On October 1, 1928, he became President of the State Insurance Company .

On October 31, 1925, Grotewohl entered the Reichstag as a replacement for the late Elise Bartels . After the Reichstag election of May 20, 1928 , he again entered the Reichstag; also after the Reichstag election of September 14, 1930 , the Reichstag election of July 31, 1932 , the Reichstag election of November 6, 1932 and the Reichstag election in March 1933 (constituency 16: Südhannover – Braunschweig (Land)). With the entire SPD parliamentary group, Grotewohl voted in 1933 on March 24, 1933 in the Reichstag against Hitler's enabling law .

time of the nationalsocialism

Relieved of his office when Hitler came to power , Grotewohl had to leave Braunschweig in 1933. He first moved to Hamburg . From 1938 he lived in Berlin as a grocer and industrial representative. He worked in a resistance group around Erich Gniffke (also SPD), whom he knew from Braunschweig. The Heibacko group served to maintain personal contacts and to promote the economic survival of its members. Active acts of resistance are not known. In August 1938 he was arrested and charged with high treason before the People's Court . The proceedings were discontinued after seven months and Grotewohl was released from custody on March 4, 1939.

After the Elser assassination attempt on Hitler on November 8th in the Bürgerbräukeller he was arrested again and spent about eight weeks in custody. After his dismissal, Grotewohl worked again as a commercial clerk in Berlin, and in addition he devoted himself more to painting in his free time (1944/45 he created a cycle of eight oil paintings People of Silence ). When after July 20, 1944 he feared again that he would be arrested in view of the Gewitter campaign, he went into hiding for a few weeks with the help of friends. Grotewohl, who witnessed the battle for Berlin , was spared from the war as an employee of a “need”.

post war period

On June 17, 1945, Otto Grotewohl, Erich Gniffke, Max Fechner , Gustav Dahrendorf and Hermann Harnisch signed the appeal to found the SPD in Berlin. Grotewohl became chairman of the central committee of the SPD in the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ) and, although initially of a contrary opinion, a leading supporter of a union of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) with the SPD. It had been pushed above all by the KPD functionary Walter Ulbricht , who had returned from Soviet exile and who had initially opposed the spontaneous formation of a unity party in favor of the re-establishment of the KPD.

According to statements from contemporary witnesses such as Egon Bahr and Jakob Kaiser , Grotewohl changed his mind immediately after being summoned to the Soviet Military Administration (SMAD) in Karlshorst - from where he "returned as a changed man".

Finally, after violent internal party disputes, the Berlin SPD held a ballot on March 31, 1946 on the question of unification. In the western sectors, over 80 percent answered the question: “Are you in favor of the immediate merger of the two workers' parties?” With “No”. In the Soviet sector , the SMAD prevented the vote and on April 22, 1946, the forced union of the SPD and KPD to form the SED took place in the Admiralspalast . The chairmen were Grotewohl and the previous KPD chairman Wilhelm Pieck . In the years to come, Ulbricht and Pieck, although he was formally equal with him, gained far more power in the politics of the Soviet occupation zone thanks to the influence of the SMAD.

In 1948 Grotewohl became chairman of the constitutional committee of the German People's Council , the forerunner of the GDR People's Chamber .

Prime Minister of the GDR

Symbolic handshake that sealed the union of the KPD and SPD to form the SED.
The Prime Minister of the GDR, Otto Grotewohl, signing the Warsaw Pact treaty in 1955

After the founding of the GDR on October 7, 1949, Grotewohl became its Prime Minister . In all of his decisions, he was dependent on the Soviet Control Commission in Germany and its successor institutions until 1955 .

In July 1950, Grotewohl was a member of the delegation that signed the Görlitz Agreement on the recognition of the Oder-Neisse border as a state border between Germany and Poland . In 1957 he advocated the Rapacki Plan for a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone in Central Europe. Due to serious illness, he withdrew from political life in 1960 and from then on lived in seclusion in the Waldsiedlung Wandlitz . His function was in fact carried out by his first deputy, Willi Stoph , who also succeeded him as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Grotewohl died in 1964 in Berlin-Niederschönhausen as a result of a stroke.

tomb

Private

Grotewohl was married to Marie Martha Luise Ohst (* 1894, † after 1976) from 1919 to 1949 and had two children with her. After the divorce in 1949, he married his secretary Johanna Schumann, née Danielzig, in the same year. He was an avid draftsman, painter and amateur filmmaker. Otto Grotewohl's urn was buried in the central roundabout of the Socialist Memorial , his widow's urn in the Pergolenweg grave complex in Berlin's Friedrichsfelde central cemetery .

Honors

He was the bearer of the Order of Lenin (1964, presented by Walter Ulbricht on the occasion of his 70th birthday), the Karl Marx Order , the GDR Patriotic Order of Merit in gold and an honorary citizen of the city of Dresden .

In the GDR, numerous streets and squares - including the East Berlin section of Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin-Mitte - bore his name, and public institutions such as schools, barracks and the Otto Grotewohl Stadium in Aue were named after him. The chemical plant in Böhlen was named after him. Brigades in state-owned companies applied to bear Grotewohl's name. In the language of the prisoners, the prisoner collection transport cars of the Deutsche Reichsbahn were called "Grotewohl-Express". After the German reunification , most of these names were deleted.

Fonts

  • The constitution of the municipalities and districts in the Free State of Braunschweig . Second, revised and supplemented edition, Braunschweig 1928.
  • Thirty years later. The November Revolution and the Lessons of the History of the German Labor Movement . Dietz, Berlin 1948.
  • The role of the workers 'and peasants' power in the German Democratic Republic. Presentation at the 3rd party conference of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Berlin, March 24-30, 1956 . Dietz, Berlin 1956.
  • In the fight for the unified German Democratic Republic. Speeches and essays . 6 volumes. Berlin 1959–1962.
  • About politics, history and culture. Selected speeches and writings 1945–1961 . Dietz, Berlin 1979.
  • Sketches, drawings, watercolors, paintings . Dietz, Berlin 1984.

literature

  • Monika Kaiser, Helmut Müller-Enbergs :  Grotewohl, Otto Emil Franz . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  • Dierk Hoffmann: Otto Grotewohl (1894–1964). A political biography. Oldenbourg, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-486-59032-6 (publications on SBZ / GDR research in the Institute for Contemporary History).
  • Matthias Loeding: Between leadership, confrontation and willingness to cooperate. The central committee of the SPD and the Schumacher office in Hanover in the run-up to the Wennigsen conference. In: Contributions to the history of the labor movement. Volume 48, 2006 (2008), Issue 1, pp. 113-140.
  • Matthias Loeding: From the Wennigsener to the 1st Sixties Conference. The central committee of the SPD in the fight for its independence. Kovac, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-8300-2049-X .
  • Matthias Loeding: Otto Grotewohl versus Kurt Schumacher. The Wennigsen conference in October 1945. Kovac, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-8300-1391-4 .
  • Matthias Loeding: First political accents of the Berlin SPD after the collapse: Otto Grotewohl's speech at the first post-war functionaries conference of the SPD on June 17, 1945 in Berlin. In: Contributions to the history of the labor movement. Volume 45, 2003, No. 4, pp. 101-110.
  • Matthias Loeding: Claim to leadership and urge for unity. The central committee of the SPD in Berlin in 1945 . Kovac, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-8300-0770-1 (also dissertation, University of Hanover, 2002).
  • Wolfgang Triebel: Praised and reviled. Who was Otto Grotewohl? Essays and interviews with contemporary witnesses. Trafo-Verlag Weist, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-89626-133-9 .
  • Markus Jodl: anvil or hammer? Otto Grotewohl; a political biography. Construction paperback, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-7466-1341-8 .
  • Martin Schumacher (Hrsg.): MdR The Reichstag members of the Weimar Republic in the time of National Socialism. Political persecution, emigration and expatriation, 1933–1945. A biographical documentation . 3rd, considerably expanded and revised edition. Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5183-1 .

Web links

Commons : Otto Grotewohl  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Prussian loss list No. 560 of June 21, 1916, German loss lists / page 13037: Infanterie-Regiment 137 (addendum) Grotewohl, Otto (1st Genes. Comp.) - Braunschweig - verw. August 11, 1915; No. 583 of July 18, 1916, p. 13421: Infantry Regiment 92, 4th Kp .: Otto Grotewohl - Braunschweig - easily used; No. 931 of September 7, 1917, p. 20467: Grotewohl, Otto - 11.3. Braunschweig - difficult to use
  2. ↑ Dierk Hoffmann: Otto Grotewohl (1894–1964): a political biography , p. 148 ff. (Online at google books )
  3. ↑ Dierk Hoffmann (2009), Otto Grotewohl (1894–1964): a political biography , p. 158 ff. ( Online )
  4. ↑ a b c Dierk Hoffmann: Otto Grotewohl (1894–1964): a political biography , Oldenbourg 2009, p. 189 ff. ( Online )
  5. ^ Dierk Hoffmann: Otto Grotewohl (1894–1964). A political biography. Oldenbourg, 2009, p. 192 ff.
  6. ^ According to Heinz Voßke : Otto Grotewohl. Biographical summary . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1979, p. 106 ff., Shortly before the end of the war, Grotewohl was able to evade his call to the Volkssturm by going into hiding ; Hoffmann, Otto Grotewohl (1894–1964): a political biography , Oldenbourg, 2009, p. 190, points out the lack of evidence and, on the other hand, cites the exemption from the military authority for Grotewohl.
  7. ^ Egon Bahr and Peter Ensikat: 'Gaps in memory two Germans remember' . Construction Publishing House, Berlin 2012.
  8. ^ Heinz Voßke: Otto Grotewohl. Biographical summary. Dietz, Berlin 1979, p. 316.
  9. ^ Dierk Hoffmann: Otto Grotewohl (1894–1964). Oldenbourg, Munich 2009, p. 36 ( online ).
  10. ^ Heinz Voßke: Otto Grotewohl. Biographical summary. Dietz, Berlin 1979, p. 298 ( excerpt ).
  11. ↑ Review. In: H-Soz-u-Kult , December 4, 2009.
personal data
SURNAME Grotewohl, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grotewohl, Otto Emil Franz (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD, SED), MdR, MdV, Prime Minister of the GDR
DATE OF BIRTH March 11, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Braunschweig
DATE OF DEATH September 21, 1964
PLACE OF DEATH East Berlin