Rolf Henrich

Rolf Henrich (* 24 February 1944 in Magdeburg ) is a German lawyer , author and former GDR - Dissident . His book The Guardian State , published in April 1989 . The failure of the actually existing socialism is considered to be an important impulse for the formation of the citizens' movement in the GDR.

Life

Henrich is a trained miner . While studying law at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena and the Humboldt University in Berlin , which he began in 1964 and graduated with a degree in law, he was given “revisionism” in connection with discussions about the Prague Spring 1968 because of “psychologizing the Right ”accused and he had to drop out of his research studies . He did his military service in the NVA and was then briefly a research assistant at the Academy for Political Science and Law in Potsdam-Babelsberg . From March 1966 to February 1969 he worked for the Gera / Abt district administration. II / 2 of the Ministry for State Security as an unofficial employee (code name "dispute") in the field of "external defense". In this context, one case was deployed in the so-called Operation Area West.

In 1973 he opened a law firm in Eisenhüttenstadt . There he was SED - Party Secretary of the College of Lawyers. During this time he attended the SED district party school in Frankfurt (Oder) . Since Rudolf Bahro's conviction in 1978, he has been increasingly critical of socialism in the GDR. After the publication of his book in April 1989, in which he criticized the party state's claim to guardianship and drafted reform ideas, he was expelled from the bar and the SED and was banned from working . In 1989 he was one of the signatories of the New Forum's appeal . Later he was a representative of the New Forum at the Central Round Table and joined the SPD in 1990 . After the collapse of the GDR , Henrich turned down political offices he had been offered and worked again as a lawyer in Eisenhüttenstadt. Among other things, he was a defender of GDR border soldiers in the wall rifle trials .

Henrich is married, has a son and has lived in Eisenhüttenstadt since 1973 and in the Hammerfort von Groß Lindow residential area since the mid-1970s .

Fonts

• The guardian state. On the failure of real existing socialism (rororo currently 12536). Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-499-12536-6 .
• Violence and Form in a Volcanic World. Articles 1991-1996 . Verlag Raphael Heinrich, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-932458-01-X .
• The noose . Novel. Eichborn-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-8218-0707-5 .
• Breaking out of guardianship. Memories . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-96289-035-3 .

literature

• András Dörner: Rolf Henrich's criticism of state socialism . Diversity of socialist thought (Issue 11), Helle Panke, Berlin 2002.
• Achim Engelberg : The exemplary journey of Rolf Henrich . In: But where does Europe end? Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02132-0 .
• Helmut Müller-Enbergs , Jan Wielgohs:  Henrich, Rolf . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Müller-Enbergs / Wielgohs

Web links

• Literature by and about Rolf Henrich in the catalog of the German National Library
• Irmgard Zündorf: Rolf Henrich. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
• Rolf Henrich on contemporary witness portal