Willi Albrecht

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Willi Albrecht (also: Willy Albrecht ; born September 12, 1896 in Erfurt ; † January 27, 1969 ibid) was a German politician ( KPD / SED ) and trade unionist . He was chairman of the FDGB state board and state minister for labor and social welfare in Thuringia .

Life

1896-1933

Albrecht was born in Erfurt as the son of a butcher . After attending primary school , he did an apprenticeship as a construction and machine fitter from 1910 to 1913. In this profession he worked in various companies from 1913 to 1931. This time was interrupted by his front service as a soldier from 1914 to 1918. In 1917 he joined the German Metal Workers Association (DMV). From 1917 to 1931 he was a union shop steward , works council and member of the central council of the Erfurt works councils. He also belonged to the ADGB union cartel in Erfurt and was secretary in the Reich Committee of Works Councils. In 1931 he was expelled from the DMV. Subsequently, Albrecht was from 1931 to 1933 district leader of the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO) in Thuringia.

In 1918 Albrecht became a member of the USPD , in 1920 finally a member of the KPD and its district leadership in Erfurt. In the same year Albrecht took part in armed conflict in the Gotha area as part of the Kapp Putsch . In 1923 he was arrested in Hildesheim for attending a banned works council conference and spent four months in custody. In 1929 Albrecht was sentenced to four months in prison for attending an RFB rally. He was a member of the RFB, at times in the rank of Untergau leader. From 1930 to 1933 Albrecht was a city councilor in Erfurt.

1933-1945

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists, he joined the resistance . On May 17, 1933, he was arrested in Berlin and in 1933/34 was in “ protective custody ” in the Lichtenburg concentration camp, among other places . After his release in April 1934, he found work as a heating fitter at the precision engineering works in Erfurt. In 1944 he was arrested again as part of the Grid Action and taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp for three months . In order to protect himself from persecution, Albrecht joined the DAF in 1934 , of which he remained a member until the end of the war.

After 1945

After the war ended, Albrecht was briefly arrested by the American occupation authorities from the end of May to the beginning of June 1945 for unauthorized political activity. During this time he was a member of the Erfurt Citizenship Advisory Board and chairman of the works council of the precision engineering works. After the change of occupation, Albrecht was appointed by the KPD in July 1945 as head of the Erfurt employment office and the State Office for Labor and Social Policy Thuringia. On September 20, 1945, however, he was relieved of this task at his own request, as Albrecht had been appointed Thuringian state chairman of the newly founded FDGB on August 20, 1945. In addition, he was a member of the KPD district leadership of Thuringia until April 1946. Until July 1, 1949, he headed the FDGB regional association Thuringia as its chairman. In addition, Albrecht was a member of the FDGB federal executive committee until November 1963, and from 1955 to 1959 he was also a member of the executive committee of the federal executive committee.

A member of the SED since 1946, Albrecht was a member of the SED state executive from 1947 to 1949 and at times also of its secretariat. He was a member of the Advisory State Assembly of Thuringia and led the FDGB parliamentary group there. Albrecht was a member of the Thuringian state parliament for the entire first electoral period from 1946 to 1950. In addition, he was a member of the 1st German People's Council from its constitution in March 1948 until its end in May 1949 . In the course of the forced resignation of Minister Georg Appell by the Soviet military administration in Germany , Albrecht was appointed by the government around Werner Eggerath as the Thuringian State Minister for Labor and Social Welfare on July 6, 1949. He held this office until November 22, 1950.

Subsequently, Albrecht was elected first chairman of the central board of the union administration, banks, insurance (VBV). A move to Berlin was associated with this full-time activity. In 1958 he took over the chairmanship of the subsequent state administration, health care and finance union , which he held until 1960. From 1955 Albrecht was a member of the administrative committee of the World Trade Union Confederation (WGB). In April 1960 he was elected General Secretary of the International Association of Workers in the Public Service and Related Professions , based in Berlin, and from 1961 to 1965 he was also a member of the Executive Committee of the World Trade Union Confederation . In 1964 Albrecht retired and moved back to Erfurt with his wife.

Awards and honors

In the Erfurt district of Roter Berg , the Willy-Albrecht-Ring was named after him from 1973 to 1992 (today: Alfred-Delp-Ring ).

literature

  • Martin Broszat et al. (Ed.): SBZ manual: State administrations, parties, social organizations and their executives in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany 1945–1949 . Oldenbourg, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-486-55262-7 , p. 859.
  • 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. 13.
  • Monika Zorn: Hitler's victims twice killed . Ahriman-Verlag, Freiburg / Br. 1994, ISBN 3-89484-401-9 , pp. 227f.
  • 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. 7f.
  • Andreas Herbst: Albrecht, 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.
  • Steffen Kachel: A red-red special path? Social Democrats and Communists in Thuringia 1919 to 1949 . Böhlau Verlag, Cologne Weimar 2011, ISBN 978-3-412-20544-7 , p. 539 and passim.
  • Jochen Lengemann : Thuringian state parliaments 1919–1952. Biographical manual. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-412-22179-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jochen Lengemann: Thuringian state parliaments 1919–1952. Biographical manual. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-412-22179-9 , p. 136.
  2. ↑ Alfred-Delp-Ring on erfurt-web.de and Erfurter Statistics. Street directory 2011 PDF ( Memento from February 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Albrecht, Willi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Albrecht, Willy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician, MdV and trade unionist
DATE OF BIRTH September 12, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Erfurt
DATE OF DEATH January 27, 1969
Place of death Erfurt