Werner Eggerath

Werner Eggerath (1950)

Werner Eggerath (born March 16, 1900 in Elberfeld , † June 16, 1977 in Berlin ) was a German politician ( KPD / SED ), resistance fighter against National Socialism and writer .

Life

Eggerath was a soldier from 1918 to 1919, fought in the Red Ruhr Army in 1920 and then fled to the Dutch province of Limburg . He lived in the German border town of Gangelt in 1923 and worked as a KPD functionary in the 1920s. In 1929 he was a city councilor in Neuss , and in 1932 sub-district manager in Wuppertal . From 1932 to 1934 he attended the International Lenin School in Moscow and then worked illegally for the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO) and the German KPD country leadership. In 1935 he was arrested and in 1936 by the People's Court for preparation for high treason sentenced to 15 years in prison, which he in part penitentiary Munster and in the penitentiary Bochum was serving.

In 1945 Eggerath became district administrator of the Mansfelder Seekreis in Eisleben and first secretary of the KPD district leadership in Thuringia , in 1946 a member of the Thuringian state parliament and state chairman of the SED of Thuringia. In 1947 he was Minister of the Interior (successor to Ernst Busse ) and from 1947 to 1952 as District President ( Prime Minister ) of the State of Thuringia (successor to Rudolf Paul ). He was also a member of the German People's Council in 1948/49 and a member of the People's Chamber until 1954 .

tomb

From 1952 to 1954 Eggerath was State Secretary to the Prime Minister of the GDR , then until 1957 Ambassador to Romania (successor to Georg Ulrich Handke ) and from 1957 to 1960 first State Secretary for Church Affairs . From 1961 he lived as a freelance writer in Berlin.

His urn was in the grave conditioning Pergolenweg the memorial of the socialists at the Berlin Central Cemetery Friedrichsfelde buried.

Awards and honors

• Patriotic Order of Merit (VVO) in silver (May 6, 1955), in gold (1965), honor bar for the VVO in gold (1970)
• Medal for fighters against fascism 1933 to 1945 (1958)
• Fritz Heckert Medal (1959)
• Medal of Merit of the GDR (1959)
• Order Banner of Labor (1960)
• National Prize of the GDR III. Class (1960)
• Ernst Moritz Arndt Medal (1960)
• Peace Medal (1960)
• Appointment as Honorary Senator of the University of Jena (1966)
• Karl Marx Order (1975)
• On the occasion of Eggerath's 80th birthday, the GDR Deutsche Post issued a special stamp in 1980 .

Works

• Just human. Thuringian Volksverlag Weimar, 1947.
• 10,000 kilometers through Soviet territory. Experience report. Thuringian Landesverlag Weimar 1949.
• The city in the valley. Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1952.
• The decision of Dr. Ringler. Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1956.
• Not a single drop is shed in vain. Publisher Tribüne, 1959.
• Water ingress! Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1960.
• The Cossack General and Other Stories. Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1961.
• In the land of the blue flames. FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1964.
• Quo Vadis Germania. Urania Publishing House, 1965.
• The happy confession. One year of my life. Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1975.

literature

• Elke Reuter, Helmut Müller-Enbergs :  Eggerath, Werner . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Werner Eggerath , in Internationales Biographisches Archiv 38/1977 of September 12, 1977, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

Commons : Werner Eggerath  - Collection of Images

• Literature by and about Werner Eggerath in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Werner Eggerath in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)
• Literature by and about Werner Eggerath in the bibliographic database WorldCat