Willi Barth

Willi Barth (born September 15, 1899 in Ingersleben ; † May 5, 1988 in Berlin ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism and SED functionary in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). From 1954 to 1977 he was department head for church issues of the Central Committee of the SED .

Life

After his apprenticeship, the son of a bricklayer and midwife Willi Barth worked as a carpenter in Erfurt and Gotha until 1928 . In 1916 he joined the German Woodworkers Association , in 1919 in the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) and in 1920 in the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). In 1920 he was political leader for the KPD in Ingersleben, for the Association of Political Freethinkers Instructor in Gotha and member of the armed proletarian hundreds .

From 1928 to 1931 Barth was a member of the municipal council and until 1933 a member of the city council in Ingersleben. From 1930 to 1933 he was deputy mayor. In 1931 he attended the Rosa-Luxemburg-Schule of the central committee of the KPD and became district secretary of the Red Aid of the district association of Thuringia .

After the National Socialists came to power , Barth continued his work for the Red Aid in Hanover , Berlin and Thuringia under the code name Ernst and reported to the exile leadership of the KPD in Prague and Paris every two weeks . Barth was involved in building up a defense apparatus against the Secret State Police (Gestapo). In December 1934 he emigrated to Czechoslovakia and became a member of the Red Aid leadership in exile in Prague.

In March 1938 Barth went to Great Britain and in 1940 was interned as an enemy foreigner, first in Great Britain and then in Canada . In 1942 he was released to Great Britain. Until 1946 he worked as a carpenter in Manchester . As a member of the KPD leadership, he was responsible for the local groups of the Free German Cultural Association in Great Britain.

In 1946, Barth returned to Germany via Yugoslavia , joined the SED and became a consultant in the State and Provincial Policy Department and chief consultant for state administration at the Central Committee (ZK) of the SED. In 1948/49 he completed a course at the party college "Karl Marx" and became head of the local politics department. In 1950 he became deputy head of the state administration department. From 1954 until his retirement in 1977, Barth was head of the working group for church issues.

From 1977 until his death in 1988 he was also a member of the central commission for the support of party veterans. His urn was in the grave conditioning Pergolenweg the memorial of the socialists at the Berlin Central Cemetery Friedrichsfelde buried.

Honors

• 1959 Patriotic Order of Merit in silver
• 1964 Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold
• 1969 Karl Marx Order
• 1974 Gold medal for the Patriotic Order of Merit
• 1975 battle request "For services to the people and fatherland"
• 1979 Silver Star of Friendship of Nations
• 1984 Gold Star of Friendship between Nations

literature

• Helmut Müller-Enbergs and Bernd-Rainer Barth :  Willi Barth . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• History of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (outline) . Verlag Marxistische Blätter, Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-88012-529-5 .
• Alfred Fleischhacker: That was our life, memories of the history of the FDJ in Great Britain 1939-1945 , Verlag Neues Leben Berlin 1969, ISBN 3-355-01475-3

Web links

• Literature by and about Willi Barth in the catalog of the German National Library