Willi Kuhn

This article deals with the politician and trade unionist Willi Kuhn. For other people see Wilhelm Kuhn .

Willi Kuhn (1951)

Willi Kuhn (also: Willy Kuhn ; born August 29, 1911 in Königsberg ; † September 5, 1982 in Berlin ) was a German politician ( SED ) and trade unionist .

Life

Kuhn, son of a wheelwright and a housewife, completed after the elementary school trained as a shaper . He then worked in a wagon factory in Königsberg. In 1927 he became a member of the German Metalworkers' Association , later of the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition . In 1927 he joined the Communist Youth Association of Germany (KJVD) and in October 1931 the Communist Party of Germany (KPD).

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists in 1933, Kuhn took part in the resistance against the Nazi regime . From March 3, 1933 to March 23, 1934, Kuhn was in so-called “ protective custody ” in the Börgermoor and Esterwegen camps . In 1934/35 he worked as a shaper and resumed his resistance activities. He was involved in the reorganization of the KJVD of East Prussia in the underground. On behalf of the illegal leadership of the KPD, Kuhn set up an operating cell in his company. After he was arrested again in February 1935, he remained in custody until April 1939, including being held in Sachsenhausen concentration camp . From 1939 to 1942 Kuhn worked again as a moulder in a machine factory or in an iron foundry in Königsberg. From 1942 to 1945 he was a member of a punitive battalion of the " Organization Todt ".

After the end of the war, Kuhn was a consultant in the main youth committee at the Berlin magistrate . In 1945 he rejoined the KPD and the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB). In 1946 he became a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). From 1946 to 1948 he was deputy head of department and youth secretary in the FDGB federal board. From 1948 he was head of department and - after nine months of study at the party college "Karl Marx" at the Central Committee (ZK) of the SED - from July 1950 to September 1951 chairman of the FDGB state board Mecklenburg and from 1950 to 1952 also a member of the state parliament there . Subsequently, from 1951 to 1956 he was chairman of the FDGB Greater Berlin and the FDGB District Board Berlin and a member of the Presidium of the FDGB Federal Board. In 1951/52 he worked as secretary of the FDGB federal executive, 1959/60 as head of department and from 1960 as a political employee in the FDGB federal executive.

In 1955/56 Kuhn completed a one-year course at the party college at the Central Committee of the CPSU in Moscow . Kuhn then served from July 1956 to February 1959 as the second secretary of the SED district leadership in Berlin. From 1954 to 1958 he was also a member of the Central Committee of the SED.

literature

• Carola Stern : Portrait of a Bolshevik Party. Development, function and situation of the SED . Verlag für Politik und Wirtschaft, Cologne 1957, p. 308.
• Andreas Herbst (eds.), Winfried Ranke, Jürgen Winkler: This is how the GDR worked. Volume 3: Lexicon of functionaries (= rororo manual. Vol. 6350). Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-499-16350-0 , p. 194.
• 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 , p. 447.
• Andreas Herbst: Kuhn, Willi . In: Dieter Dowe , Karlheinz Kuba, Manfred Wilke (Hrsg.): FDGB-Lexikon. Function, structure, cadre and development of a mass organization of the SED (1945–1990). Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86872-240-6 .
• Mario Niemann , Andreas Herbst (ed.): SED squad: the middle level. Biographical encyclopedia of the secretaries of the state and district managements, the prime ministers and the chairmen of the district councils 1946 to 1989 . Schöningh, Paderborn 2010, ISBN 978-3-506-76977-0 , p. 295f.
• Mario Niemann:  Kuhn, Willi . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .