Ursula Ragwitz

Ursula Ragwitz (birth name: Ursula Rose ; born February 15, 1928 in Cottbus ) is a former functionary of the SED in the GDR .

Life

The daughter of a driver studied music education and German at the teacher training institute in Exin in the district of Bromberg between 1942 and 1945 and became a trainee teacher in a village school in the Spreewald after the end of the Second World War in 1945 . After she became a member of the SED in 1946, she was first a teacher at the 7th  elementary school in Cottbus between 1946 and 1951 and then from 1951 to 1952 a lecturer at the Institute for Teacher Education (IfL) there.

In 1953 she founded the Cottbus Music School and was its director and then head of the Culture Department at the Cottbus District Council and, from May to June 1954, head of a department of the State Art Commission. Subsequently, she successively became assistant, senior assistant and finally a lecturer at the Dresden University of Music and then until 1963 director of the Hoyerswerda Music School .

Between 1963 and 1969, Ursula Ragwitz, who is married to the composer and musicologist Erhard Ragwitz , was deputy chairwoman of the Cottbus District Council for Culture, Physical Culture and Sport and, during this time, completed a further training course for senior cultural cadre at the Institute for Social Sciences (IfG) in 1967. of the Central Committee of the SED in East Berlin . In addition, she became a member of the central board of the Association of Performing Artists (VDK) in 1968.

In 1969 she switched to the culture department of the Central Committee of the SED as a political assistant, became its deputy director in 1973 and was then acting director from November 1975 to March 1976. In March 1976 she finally succeeded Peter Heldt as head of the culture department of the Central Committee of the SED and held this position until the fall of the Wall in November 1989.

In this office she had a decisive influence on cultural life and work in the GDR, but also on authors in the Federal Republic of Germany , as well as on the material support of writers like Stephan Hermlin . In addition, she was subordinate to the Central Committee Secretary Kurt Hager , for example in the approval practice of foreign tours and performances by GDR artists, but also jointly responsible for the publication and filming of books by Karl May .

In addition to her function as Central Committee department head, she was a member of the Culture Commission at the Politburo between 1976 and 1989 as well as the Politburo commission for the head of the social science institutes of the SED Central Committee.

Ursula Ragwitz that with the 1980 Banner of Labor , and in 1981 with the battle order "For services to people and fatherland" was awarded, was between 1981 and 3 December 1989, a member of the SED Central Committee and received in 1985 the Patriotic Order of Merit (VVO) . In addition to her membership of the joint government commission for cultural cooperation between the GDR and the Soviet Union from 1986 to 1989, she was also a member of the Presidential Council and Presidium of the GDR Cultural Association from 1987 and 1989 . Most recently, on July 8, 1988, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg as well as the VVO. The award of the honorary doctorate took place against the resistance of some professors and the dean of the Philosophical Faculty as a result of political influence by the SED. Since the end of the GDR, she has lived with her husband as a pensioner in Berlin .

literature

• Helmut Müller-Enbergs , Andreas Herbst :  Ragwitz, Ursula . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Angela Borgwardt: In dealing with power: rule and self-assertion in an authoritarian political system , VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2002, ISBN 3531138332 ( online )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Internal structure of Central Committee departments
2. ↑ ^{a b} Angela Borgwardt: In dealing with power: rule and self-assertion in an authoritarian political system , VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2002, p. 98.
3. ↑ DER SPIEGEL: Stupid and in good faith. Peter Schütt on the influence of GDR cultural policy on West German authors (No. 7/1992)
4. ↑ Jörg Bernhard Bilke: Western wines could not be mentioned. GDR censorship on everything that was printed . In: Listen and Look. Journal for the critical reappraisal of the SED dictatorship , issue 3/2008, pp. 74 and 75
5. ↑ DER SPIEGEL: WRITER: Hermlin: Help from the MfS (No. 5/1997 )
6. ↑ Culture and Art in the GDR - Mission, Debate and Change (Letter from Ursula Ragwitz to Kurt Hager from June 29, 1982) ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ↑ Culture and Art in the GDR - Mission, Debate and Change (Letter from Ursula Ragwitz to Erich Honecker, November 10, 1981) ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
8. ^ The renewal of the Martin Luther University. Arguments reports analyzes documents of the initiative group . (Issue 2). Halle (Saale) 1990, p. 20-35 .