Wilhelm Koenen

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Wilhelm Koenen 1951
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Wilhelm Koenen (born April 7, 1886 in Hamburg , † October 19, 1963 in Berlin ) was a German politician .

Life

Koenen, the son of a carpenter and a cook, completed a commercial apprenticeship from 1900 to 1903 after attending primary school. From 1904 he worked in a people's bookstore in Kiel . He also attended courses at the workers' training school in Hamburg and the social democratic party school in Berlin. From 1907 he was a newspaper reporter in Kiel, later in Königsberg . In 1911 he became editor of the social democratic Volksblatt in Halle an der Saale .

After the National Socialists came to power , he fled Germany in 1933, first to the Saar region and later to France . There he tried in the Lutetia district to organize a popular front against the Hitler dictatorship. From 1935 to 1938 he stayed in Czechoslovakia . There he was involved in the KPD's border work (see also United Climbing Department ). In 1938 he fled further to England . There he was one of the editors of the press release Inside Nazi Germany . In 1940 he was brought to Canada as an " Enemy Alien ", where he remained interned until 1942. Since 1937 he was married to Emmy Damerius-Koenen . In 1943 he became a founding member of the "Free Germany" movement in London . In 1944 he worked for the soldier broadcaster Calais .

After his return to Germany, he was editor-in-chief of the KPD newspaper Mitteldeutsche Zeitung in Halle from 1945 to 1946 .

Wilhelm Koenen was the brother of Bernhard Koenen . Like his brother, he was buried in the Socialist Memorial in Berlin's Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery. According to him, which is Wilhelm Koenen Street in Sangerhausen named.

Wilhelm Koenen's son Heinrich was arrested by the Gestapo on October 29, 1942 in Ilse Stöbe's apartment and shot in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in February 1945.

Political party

Koenen, whose father was already a socialist, joined the SPD in 1903 . In 1913 he became a member of the SPD district leadership, with most of the local party he joined the USPD in 1917 . In 1919 Koenen was a board member of the USPD's central committee. From 1920 Koenen belonged to the headquarters of the KPD . In the KPD Koenen initially belonged to the left wing of the party, then from around 1924 to the so-called middle group and from 1925 actively supported the leadership group around Ernst Thälmann . From 1929 to 1931 Koenen worked as the KPD's political secretary for the Halle-Merseburg district. From 1931 he was pushed into the background within the party and lost his party function in Halle and his previous safe place on the list. On February 7, 1933, Koenen took part in the conspiratorial meeting of the Central Committee of the KPD in the sports store Ziegenhals near Berlin.

From 1945 Koenen participated in the reconstruction of the KPD and, after the forced unification of the SPD and KPD , in the establishment of the SED in East Germany. Since 1946 he was a member of the party executive and also the central committee of the SED . In May 1953, he was reprimanded by the SED leadership on charges of lack of vigilance .

MP

During the November Revolution of 1918/1919 Koenen was commissioner of the workers 'and soldiers' councils in the Halle-Merseburg district. In 1919/20 he was a member of the Weimar National Assembly . On July 16, 1919, he demanded the introduction of a constitutional provision in the National Assembly, which should allow the public showing of films for young people only authorities and non-profit organizations, so that young people would be protected from profiteering by “the capitalists”. Between 1920 and 1932 he was a member of the Reichstag . He was also a city councilor in Berlin from 1926 to 1932 and a member of the Prussian State Council from late 1929 to May 1932 . In the state elections in April 1932, he entered the Prussian state parliament as a member.

Between 1946 and 1949 Koenen was a member of the Saxon state parliament. From 1949 until his death he was a member of the People's Chamber , where he was head of the secretariat. Since 1955 he was chairman of the GDR Interparliamentary Group . On May 6, 1955, he was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver.

literature

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Koenen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinrich-Wilhelm Wörmann: Resistance in Charlottenburg ; Volume 5 of the SR of the GDW, Berlin 1991 (2nd combined and expanded edition: Berlin 1998) page 133.
  2. ↑ List of participants
  3. ↑ Source: Minutes of the 58th session of the National Assembly on July 16, 1919, page 1592.
personal data
SURNAME Koenen, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politicians (SPD, KPD, SED), MdR, MdV
DATE OF BIRTH April 7, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH October 19, 1963
Place of death Berlin