Walter Czollek
Walter Czollek (born April 8, 1907 in Charlottenburg ; † April 23, 1972 in East Berlin ) was a German-Jewish communist resistance fighter and head of the Volk und Welt publishing house in the GDR .
Life
Czollek is the son of a merchant; after successfully attending a grammar school, he completed a commercial training from 1924 and worked in this profession until 1933. He also acquired a qualification for the production and processing of rayon fabrics. From 1928 to 1930 he studied economics at the German University for Politics in Berlin-Schöneberg .
In 1929 he joined the KPD and was a secret employee in the M apparatus until 1933. After the takeover of the Nazis he was active in the resistance against the Nazi regime. Czollek was sentenced to two years in prison in 1934 and was imprisoned in Luckau and on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse in Berlin , in Lichtenburg concentration camp in 1936, in Dachau concentration camp in 1937 and in Buchenwald concentration camp in 1938 .
In May 1939 he was expelled from Germany. From June 1939 to 1947 he lived in Shanghai . There he ran an illegal radio station for the Communist Party of China until 1941, worked as a translator and spokesman for the German-speaking voice of the Soviet Union in Shanghai from 1939 to 1947 and was head of the KPD in China. On the side he did jobs for a Soviet intelligence service. In November 1945 he co-founded the Residents Association of Democratic Germans in Shanghai.
In 1947 Czollek returned to Berlin and worked for the Deutsche Treuhandverwaltung and the Berlin industrial and commercial office. From 1950 to 1952 he was editor of contemporary history at the Volk und Welt publishing house , then second managing director and from 1954 to 1972 publishing director as successor to Bruno Peterson . According to the memories of Fritz J. Raddatz , who worked under Czollek, Czollek called himself an "old Spittelmarkt Jew" (alluding to the Berlin quarter ). In 1954, the atheist had his exit from the Jewish community notarized after numerous Stalinist purges had been directed against Jews.
In 1967 he was awarded the Silver Patriotic Order of Merit .
The songwriter and politician Michael Czollek was his son, the lyricist and political scientist Max Czollek is his grandson.
literature
- Carsten Wurm, Bernd-Rainer Barth : Czollek, Walter . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
- Siegfried Mielke (Ed.) With the collaboration of Marion Goers, Stefan Heinz , Matthias Oden, Sebastian Bödecker: Unique - Lecturers, students and representatives of the German University of Politics (1920-1933) in the resistance against National Socialism. Lukas-Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-86732-032-0 , pp. 271-273. (Short biography).
Web links
- Literature by and about Walter Czollek in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ^ Fritz J. Raddatz: Years with Single: A Memory . Rowohlt, 2015.
- ↑ Reinhard Hesse: "The second guilt of the left". Jews and anti-Semites in the GDR . In: Transatlantic . No. 5 , 1990, pp. 23 .
- ↑ Neues Deutschland , April 28, 1967, p. 2
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Czollek, Walter |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German publisher, head of the publishing house "Volk und Welt" |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 8, 1907 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 23, 1972 |
| Place of death | Berlin |