Richard Zänkner

Richard Zänkner (born June 30, 1907 in Berlin ; † August 28, 1998 ) was a German SED and FDGB functionary. He was the second chairman of the FDGB regional board of Thuringia , a member of the People's Council and the People's Chamber and deputy general secretary of the GDR Peace Council .

Life

Zänkner, the son of a shoemaker , attended elementary school , completed a commercial apprenticeship and then worked as a commercial clerk. In 1923 he joined the SAJ and in 1924 the SPD. From 1927 to 1929 he attended the business school of the German School of Politics. Then he was a full-time employee of the Central Association of Employees (ZdA) until 1933 . At the beginning of 1933 he became secretary of the Bremen local administration of the ZdA. After the “ seizure of power ” by the National Socialists, he was taken into “ protective custody ” in May 1933 as part of the break-up of the free trade unions . Later he headed the company health insurance fund " Dürener Metallwerke AG " in Berlin. Zänkner was drafted into the Wehrmacht between 1943 and 1945 .

After the war ended, Zänkner became a member of the FDGB in 1945 and rejoined the SPD. In the same year he was elected first chairman of the FDGB district committee Pößneck . From June 1946 to April 1947 he was second chairman of the union of employees in the Soviet occupation zone . He was also a member of the FDGB regional executive committee for Thuringia from 1946 to 1952 and was second state chairman there from 1947 to 1951. In 1947 Zänkner was elected to the federal executive committee of the FDGB and was from 1948 to 1950 a member of the People's Council and the People's Chamber. In 1948 Zänkner took over the chairmanship of the Thuringia State Insurance Institute.

From August 1952 he was instructor of the SED district leadership in Erfurt and from 1951 to 1954 secretary of the district peace committee in Erfurt. He then worked as a department head, from April 1954 as organizational secretary and from 1960 to 1973 as deputy general secretary of the German Peace Council and the Peace Council of the GDR .

literature

• Sigrid Fritzlar: Zänkner, Richard . In: Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990. Volume 2: Maassen - Zylla. KG Saur, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-598-11177-0 , p. 1040.
• Martin Broszat et al. (Ed.): SBZ manual: State administrations, parties, social organizations and their executives in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany 1945–1949 . 2nd Edition. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-486-55262-7 , p. 657.
• Detlev Brunner: Social Democrats in the FDGB. From trade union to mass organization, 1945 to the early 1950s . Klartext, Essen 2000, ISBN 3-88474-863-7 , pp. 233, 292 and 371.
• Andreas Herbst : Zänkner, Richard . In: Dieter Dowe , Karlheinz Kuba, Manfred Wilke (Hrsg.): FDGB-Lexikon. Function, structure, cadre and development of a mass organization of the SED (1945–1990). Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86872-240-6 .