Paul Eggert

Paul Eggert (born April 27, 1897 in Hermsdorf , † September 1, 1963 in Erfurt ) was a German agent of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), resistance fighter against National Socialism and prisoner in the Buchenwald concentration camp . From 1950 to 1962 he was a department head in the Thuringian state administration of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) of the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

Life

Eggert, the son of a construction worker, worked as a laborer after elementary school and later in a hemp and wire rope factory in Berlin. In 1915 he was drafted into the German Reichswehr and fought as a simple soldier in the First World War . He experienced the November Revolution of 1918 in the city of Thorn . After the end of the war Eggert was an employee of the Reichsdruckerei , later he worked as a zinc grinder. In 1920 he joined the KPD.

Within the KPD, Eggert worked for the Antimilitary Apparat (AM apparatus), the party's illegal intelligence service , and belonged to a passport forger group under the direction of Richard Großkopf , which produced false papers for persecuted KPD members. Eggert was arrested for the first time in 1925 and sentenced to two and a half years in prison , which he served until 1928. After his release he was initially head of organization of the KPD in Berlin's 20th administrative district, but soon returned to the AM apparatus.

After the takeover of the Nazis and the ban on Communist activities Eggert was arrested on 8 May 1933, Berlin, and in January 1935 by the People's Court to eight years in prison convicted. Until the end of the Second World War in 1945 he was interned in various prisons, most recently in the Buchenwald concentration camp.

After the end of the war, Eggert settled in the Soviet occupied zone of Germany (SBZ), became a member of the KPD again in 1945 and a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in 1946 . First he worked as a consultant at the State Office for Labor and Social Welfare in Thuringia. In 1947 he went to the German People's Police (DVP) and became Chief Criminal Commissioner in the Thuringian state authority. From 1950 to 1962 he was department head in the Thuringian state administration of the Ministry for State Security (MfS).

literature

• Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 ( online ).