Rudolf Kirchner

Rudolf Kirchner on November 1, 1951 in the People's Chamber

Rudolf Kirchner (born June 20, 1919 in Hirschberg , Lower Silesia Province , † May 5, 1984 in Berlin ) was a long-time trade union official in the GDR . He temporarily represented the FDGB as parliamentary group leader in the People's Chamber and was at times a candidate for the Central Committee of the SED .

Life

Rudolf Kirchner was the son of a blacksmith and train driver. After attending primary school, he trained as a typesetter from 1933 to 1937 . After that he first worked in his profession. Between 1937 and 1938 Kirchner was drafted into the Reich Labor Service for a few months . In 1939 Kirchner was drafted into the Air Force. In this he served until March 1945 when he was captured by the Soviets. While he was a prisoner of war, Kirchner also went through the Central Antifa School in Krasnogorsk.

Since his Silesian hometown fell to Poland in 1945, the Soviet authorities released him to the Soviet occupation zone in Germany in June 1949 . There he became a member of the SED and the unified trade union FDGB, in whose secretariat he was immediately appointed as head of department for labor and social policy. In this function he was also co-opted into the federal executive committee of the FDGB. At the 3rd FDGB Congress, which took place from August 30 to September 3, 1950, Kirchner was elected as deputy chairman Herbert Warnke alongside Alexander Starck . For Kirchner, who had been back in Germany for just over a year, this was an enormous rise, especially since he was already on the III. SED party congress in July 1950 was elected as a candidate of the SED Central Committee. In the elections to the People's Chamber in October 1950, Kirchner also stood as a candidate, he was elected as a member of the FDGB in the single list election. Kirchner sat in the Volkskammer until 1971, where he led the FDGB parliamentary group as chairman from 1953 to 1959, succeeding Herbert Warnke and, in the fourth electoral period from 1963 to 1967, succeeding Grete Groh-Kummerlöw . As deputy FDGB chairman, Kirchner initially took care of the organization and guidance of the individual trade unions. After Starck's removal from office in April 1951, Kirchner initially remained the sole second chairman of the FDGB, who was now also responsible for management issues and the youth sector. The Second Party Conference of the SED with the proclamation of the planned construction of socialism also had direct organizational consequences for the FDGB. At the Xth meeting of the FDGB federal executive board, which took place from July 31 to August 3, 1952, the function of the deputy chairman was abolished and a presidium was created instead, which now includes the members of the federal executive board's secretariat and the chairmen of the 12 industrial unions belonged to. Kirchner became a member of the Presidium and now headed the Production Mass Work department as secretary until the 4th Federal Congress in June 1955. At the congress he was again confirmed as Secretary in the Federal Executive Board of the FDGB, he now headed the FDGB until the 5th Congress of the FDGB in October 1959 so-called western work. In this area he headed, among other things, the office for German trade union unity and temporarily the international relations department. In 1960 Kirchner was delegated by the SED to a three-year course at the CPSU party college in Moscow, which he finished in 1963. While in January 1963 on the VI. SED party congress was no longer confirmed as a candidate for the SED Central Committee, Kirchner was re-elected to the Presidium of the Federal Executive Committee at the 6th Federal Congress of the FDGB in November of the same year. In this he was initially responsible as secretary for the vacation service and labor law departments until 1965 , until he was again responsible for Western work on the federal board from 1965. At the 7th FDGB Federal Congress, which took place in May 1968, Rudolf Kirchner was not re-elected to the Presidium of the FDGB Federal Executive Board. A job was found for the 48-year-old at the Ministry of Light Industry . He later moved to the Ministry of the Glass and Ceramics Industry. In 1982 Kirchner was disabled at the age of 63.

Honors

• 1965 Patriotic Order of Merit in silver

Fonts

• The activist plan in the fight against all production losses , Berlin 1951.
• The activities of the unions in the new course , Berlin 1953.
• Peace treaty and trade unions , Berlin 1959.
• Handbook for trade union officials , Berlin 1965.
• Some content-related problems of the work of the FDGB to understand the trade unions in both German states , Berlin 1967.

Web links

• Helmut Müller-Enbergs :  Rudolf Kirchner . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Berliner Zeitung of August 2, 1952, p. 5.
2. ^ New Germany of July 7, 1965, p. 2.