Paul Hockarth

Paul Hockarth (born June 21, 1902 in Langensalza ; † January 7, 1974 ) was a German typesetter , newspaper editor , resistance fighter against the Nazi regime , party functionary ( KPD / SED ), trade union official and general director of the Zentrag .

Life

Hockarth came from a poor family. After attending elementary school, he learned the profession of typesetter at the Perthes company . He became known through professional contact in the Gotha state parliament with the speeches of Thuringian SPD and USPD politicians, which inspired him to become politically active. In 1918 he joined the Free Socialist Youth (FSJ), whose Gotha circles he integrated into the Communist Youth Association of Germany (KJVD). In 1920 he joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). In this and the following year he attended the workers' school where Hermann Duncker taught. In 1922 he became a member of the Thuringia district management of the KJVD. In 1923 he himself published a newspaper that opposed the so-called " Reichsexekution " and defended the socialist Thuringian state government. For this he had to endure four weeks imprisonment in Erfurt . After a period of unemployment he became technical director in the printing works of the “Neue Zeitung” in Jena . In the internal party disputes of 1928/29, he strictly adhered to the line of the Central Committee . Hockarth became sub-district leader and a member of the KPD district leadership. In 1931 he became the managing director of the printing company “Progress” in Erfurt.

After the NSDAP came to power in 1933, he was arrested and held in prison until 1939. In 1939 he found a job as a typesetter at the Schmuhl company in Weimar . In 1942 he was drafted into the penal battalion 999 , was wounded in 1943 and transferred to a hospital in Weimar in 1944 .

After the liberation from National Socialism , he began to prepare the publication of a KPD newspaper for Thuringia while still in hospital. In July 1945 he became head of the “ Thuringian People's Publishing House” and again a member of the KPD district leadership. From May 1949 he acted as head of the administration department of the party operations (printing works and publishers of the SED party executive) and from January 1950 to September 1951 as managing director of the Zentrag. At the same time he was deputy head of the financial administration and party operations department of the Central Committee of the SED from January 1950 to 1967 . From 1963 to 1967 he was the general director of the Zentrag. From 1961 to 1967 he also worked as a member of the board of the IG Druck und Papier .

In 1967 he was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit (VVO) in gold. In 1972 he received the gold medal for the VVO.

literature

• Steffen Kachel : A red-red special path? Social Democrats and Communists in Thuringia 1919 to 1949 . Publications of the Historical Commission for Thuringia, Small Series Volume 29, p. 554.
• Short biography for:  Hockarth, Paul . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

• Curriculum vitae in the Federal Archives (accessed April 7, 2017).