Wilhelm Behnke

This article deals with the politician Wilhelm Behnke. For other people see Wilhelm Behncke .

Wilhelm "Willy" Behnke (born March 7, 1914 in Stettin ; † May 9, 1979 in Berlin ) was a German politician ( KPD / SED ). He was Lord Mayor of Brandenburg an der Havel and chairman of the Suhl district council .

Life

Behnke grew up in a working-class family. After attending primary school , he trained as a baker from 1928 to 1931 . In 1931 Behnke became a member of the KJVD and the KPD. He became political director of the KJVD district of Stettin. After 1933 he participated in the resistance against National Socialism . Behnke had been in custody since 1934, including in the Sachsenhausen , Dachau and Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camps (1941–1944). From February to September 1944, that is, until the main camp was closed, he was in Natzweiler as the "camp elder" at the head of the prisoner functionaries . Together with the German communists Max Stein and Hermann Kobold, they succeeded in displacing the “BVers” and “ anti-socials” who had dominated the prisoner hierarchy up to that time with those imprisoned for political reasons. “From this point on, positive changes could be observed in the Natzweiler concentration camp, according to consistent reports from former prisoners. ... Prisoners like Willy Behnke belonged to the minority of prison functionaries who showed moral courage, discipline and solidarity. ”In November 1944 Behnke was transferred as a soldier to the SS special unit Dirlewanger . On the first day of the mission in December 1944, he joined the Red Army with the entire company and was a Soviet prisoner of war until November 1945.

In 1945, Behnke initially worked as a baker again, then from 1946 to 1951 an officer in the German People's Police . In 1946 Behnke became a member of the SED. From 1951 to 1953 he was cultural director at VEB Karl-Marx-Werk in Potsdam-Babelsberg . In 1953 he attended the district party school. From 1954 he was secretary of the SED district leadership in Brandenburg, from 1954 to 1957 Lord Mayor of Brandenburg an der Havel and member of the SED district leadership Brandenburg-Stadt. In 1957/58 he graduated from the party college at the Central Committee of the CPSU with a degree in social science and was then chairman of the Suhl district council from 1958 to 1967, a member of the office of the Suhl SED district leadership and a member of the Suhl district assembly .

From 1967 to 1971 Behnke was a member of the People's Chamber and deputy chairman of the GDR Interparliamentary Group . He was a member of the central management of the committee of the anti-fascist resistance fighters of the GDR and last lived as a pensioner in Berlin.

Awards

• Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze, silver (1959) and gold (1974)
• Gold Medal for the Patriotic Order of Merit (1979)
• Artur Becker Medal in Gold (1964)

literature

• Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990. Volume 1: Abendroth - Lyr. KG Saur, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-598-11176-2 , pp. 41-42.
• Andreas Herbst , Winfried Ranke, Jürgen Winkler: This is how the GDR worked . Volume 3: Lexicon of Functionaries . Reinbek near Hamburg: Rowohlt 1994, p. 30
• Robert Steegmann: The Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp and its external commandos on the Rhine and Neckar 1941–1945 . Metropol, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-940938-58-9 .
• Andreas Herbst:  Behnke, Wilhelm . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Mario Niemann , Andreas Herbst (Ed.): SED-Kader The middle level. Biographical Lexicon 1946 to 1989 . Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2010, ISBN 978-3-506-76977-0 , p. 103f.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Obituary notice in Neues Deutschland from May 16, 1979.
2. ↑ Robert Steegmann: The Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp and its external commandos on the Rhine and Neckar 1941–1945 . Berlin 2010, p. 383ff.
3. ^ New Germany of May 16, 1979.
4. ^ New Germany of February 27, 1979.
5. ^ New Times of March 8, 1964.