Walter Kresse

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Walter Kresse (left) next to Erich Honecker, Lotte and Walter Ulbricht at the Leipzig Autumn Fair in 1964

Walter Kresse (born March 11, 1910 in Leipzig ; † February 4, 2001 there ) was a German politician of the KPD and later the SED . Kresse was Lord Mayor of Leipzig (1959–1970), President of the German City and Municipal Association and Vice President of the People's Chamber of the GDR.

Life

Walter Kresse came from a working-class family. His oldest brother was the resistance fighter Kurt Kresse . After completing a business apprenticeship, he worked as a commercial clerk from 1927. In 1928 he joined the KPD and its youth organization KJVD . 1933 cress was arrested and a three-year prison sentence convicted.

1942-43 he served in the penal battalion 999 , but fell in 1943 in Tunis in American captivity . Kresse remained interned in North Africa and Alabama until 1946 before returning to Leipzig.

In his hometown he was involved in the SED and FDGB . 1950–1953, Kresse studied economics in order to briefly work as a plant manager after completing his studies. In 1954 he moved to the Ministry of General Mechanical Engineering and was deputy minister in this department from 1956 to 1958. In 1958/59 he was in charge of the economic council of the Leipzig district .

Kresse was Lord Mayor of Leipzig from December 5, 1959 to April 15, 1970. During this time he completed a distance learning course to become a qualified lawyer. During his tenure as Lord Mayor, the Paulinerkirche Leipzig, which was undamaged during the war, was blown up in the course of the expansion of what was then Karl Marx University in Leipzig into a socialist university on May 30, 1968. His person was therefore in the first floor of the main building of the Leipzig University-located painting by Werner Tübke "Working class and intelligence", the result of a competition with the general theme "Working class and intelligence are inseparably linked under the leadership of the Marxist-Leninist party in socialism". Next to him are the then 1st Secretary of the SED district leadership Paul Fröhlich and the then chairman of the district council Erich Grützner .

Kresse was elected to the People's Chamber for the SED in 1963. After retiring as Lord Mayor in 1970, he was Vice President of the People's Chamber from 1973 to 1980 and, after 1974, Deputy Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Kresse was a member of the People's Chamber until 1990. In addition, from 1963 to 1974, Kresse was President of the German City and Municipal Association of the GDR.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. Paulinerverein: Especially now. We demand reconstruction. 2002.