Wilhelm Beier

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Wilhelm Ferdinand Hermann Beier (born August 13, 1905 in Berlin ; † February 19, 1988 there ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism , journalist and head of the publishing houses Volk und Welt , Sportverlag and Tribüne.

Life

Wilhelm Beier was born in Berlin in 1905 as the son of a seamstress and a locksmith. After secondary school he attended the printing school in 1919 and studied from 1921 to 1928 at the Berlin School of Applied Arts and the Berlin-Schöneberg School of Art . Beier also worked as a magazine editor from 1924 and as a commercial artist from 1926 to 1931. In 1929 Beier joined the KPD and supported the illegal work of the party, which was banned from 1933 until 1939, as a printer and passport forger. Under the code name Dühring or Burger he set up various illegal printing plants in Saarland and Prague . From 1936 to 1939 Beier was involved in setting up an illegal typesetting and printing plant in Paris . In 1939 Beier was arrested and interned. He managed to escape and he traveled to Algeria and Morocco with false papers and worked there, among other things, as a woodcutter . In 1941 he joined a group of Spanish communists and was involved in acts of sabotage on the transport of arms by the German Wehrmacht . In 1943 and 1944 Beier fought in the ranks of the French Resistance . In 1945 he became a member of the KPD leadership in Paris and the Movement Free Germany for the West (CALPO).

In October 1945 Beier returned to Germany and in 1946 became a member of the SED. From 1945 to 1950 Beier was the director of the Deutsche Funkverlag and in this capacity the founder and editor-in-chief of the magazine Der Rundfunk until 1946 . In 1947 Beier became a license holder, co-founder and director of the Volk und Welt publishing house . 1950 to 1954 Beier was head of the sports publishing house and the Tribüne publishing house . From 1955 to 1974 Beier was a research assistant in the working group and later in the Institute for Theory and History of Physical Culture at the German University of Physical Culture in Leipzig. From 1956 to 1977 Beier was also chairman of the Central Revision Commission of the Association of Journalists . From 1970 Beier was a member of the Commission of Historians of the World Council for Physical Education and Sport at UNESCO . On the side he worked as a French interpreter for the Central Committee of the SED until 1978 . Beier died in Berlin in 1988.

Honors

literature

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personal data
SURNAME Beier, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Beier, Wilhelm Ferdinand Hermann (full name); Willi Beier
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German anti-fascist resistance fighter and publisher
DATE OF BIRTH August 13, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH 19th February 1988
Place of death Berlin