Robert Korb

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert Korb (born September 25, 1900 in Bodenbach , Bohemia ; † December 31, 1972 in East Berlin ) was a communist functionary of the First Czechoslovak Republic ( KPTsch ) and the GDR ( SED ). He was major general of the Ministry for State Security (MfS).

Life

The son of a train driver attended the community school and grammar school from 1906 to 1917 with a high school diploma. Towards the end of the First World War , he was drafted as a soldier for military service in 1918 and then taken into custody for refusing to give orders. After the end of the war he worked as an employee in the railroad car factory Leipa (ČSR) and became a member of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Workers' Party. From 1919 he worked as a union and youth functionary.

As a left-wing social democrat, he co-founded the German section of the Communist Party in 1921 under the leadership of Karl Kreibich and secretary of the state-wide communist youth organization in the Czechoslovak Republic. From 1921 to 1923 he had to do military service in the Czechoslovak army. In 1923 he was sentenced to six months imprisonment for high treason and mutiny. In the same year he became KPTsch district secretary in Leipa. In 1924 he became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth Association of the Czechoslovak Republic and in 1926 editor-in-chief of the party circle organ "The International" in Aussig . As a representative of the Stalinist wing in the German department of the CPC, he was elected a member of the Central Committee in 1929 after the victory of the so-called Left under the leadership of Klement Gottwald at the fifth party congress of the CPC. From 1930 he was editor-in-chief of the German party press of the KPTsch, in 1931 KPTsch district secretary in Reichenberg (ČSR). He was imprisoned for thirteen months in 1933/34 for conspiracy against the republic. He then became editor-in-chief of the German-speaking Rote Fahne in Prague from 1935 and rose to become a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1936. As a representative of the CPC Central Committee, he was temporarily with the International Brigades in Spain in 1937 . In December 1938 he fled with his wife Hedwig Korb (1905–1978) from the ČSR to Moscow , where he worked from January 1939 as an employee of the Comintern's press department , later as an employee of the Comintern successor organization Institute No. 205. From 1942 to 1943 he was a member of the editorial team of the Sudeten German freedom broadcaster , where he also worked with Markus Wolf , who worked at the German national broadcaster .

Korb returned to the Czechoslovak Republic in 1945 and was appointed by the CPC Central Committee to head the resettlement campaign for German CPC members to the Soviet occupation zone . In 1946 he went to Berlin himself, became a member of the SED and worked in the central secretariat of the SED. He initially worked as editor-in-chief of the press service of the SED party executive and from 1948 as head of the press and information department of the party executive. From 1949 to 1951 he acted as head of the agitation department of the party executive and the central committee of the SED .

In August 1951 he was employed by the Foreign Intelligence Service Institute for Economic Research (IMF). As head of the main department (HA) information of the IMF, he was the direct superior of Markus Wolf. Korb was later head of HA II (Western Allies), then HA III (evaluation) and, from 1956, deputy head of the Enlightenment Headquarters (HV A) for information and training, now as Wolf's deputy. From 1955 Lieutenant Colonel, he was promoted to Colonel in 1959. In January 1959, Korb moved to the head of the information department of the Ministry for State Security, which was also renamed the Central Information Group (ZIG) (later Central Evaluation and Information Group - ZAIG) and replaced the previous head Werner Irmler , who later became his successor . In 1962 he was appointed major general. In September 1965 Robert Korb was released into retirement for health reasons and Irmler rose again to head of the service unit.

Korb died at the age of 72 and was buried in the central cemetery in Berlin-Friedrichsfelde on Pergolenweg.

The MfS paid tribute to Korb with the publication People, I loved you, be vigilant! Memories of Robert Korb (2nd, revised edition 1985, with a foreword by Markus Wolf).

Awards

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Neues Deutschland , January 12, 1973, p. 2.
personal data
SURNAME Korb, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Communist functionary (KPTsch, SED) and major general of the MfS
DATE OF BIRTH September 25, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Bodenbach , Bohemia
DATE OF DEATH December 31, 1972
Place of death East Berlin