Willy Gebhardt

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Willy Gebhardt (born June 20, 1901 in Niedersynderstedt , † May 12, 1973 in Erfurt ), also Willi Gebhardt , was a German party functionary of the KPD , Buchenwald prisoner, Thuringian interior minister and council chairman of the Erfurt district .

Life

Gebhardt was the son of a locksmith and driver . After elementary school he attended a commercial training school. Then he started an apprenticeship as a locksmith and also worked in this profession. As a teenager he became a member of the Socialist Workers' Youth (SAJ). Shortly after the November Revolution, he joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), but switched to the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) four years later . In Jena he became a people's correspondent for the left-wing newspaper “Neue Zeitung” . In 1930 he became the local editor of this newspaper. But in March he was appointed by Supreme Court Leipzig because of "preparation for high treason " to one year imprisonment sentenced, he in Gollnow spent. After another arrest and subsequent release, he worked as a party instructor. He was particularly involved in the Proletarian Freethinkers Association of Thuringia. After it was banned by the Baum-Frick government (first state government with the participation of the NSDAP ), he became organizational secretary of the Suhl KPD. In 1932 he was elected to the Thuringian state parliament for the KPD. Arrested again, he was taken to the “early” Bad Sulza concentration camp in 1933 and only released the following year. Since then he has had to live under strict police supervision , worked as a construction worker and auxiliary fitter , but still took part in illegal party work. After the failed assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , he was deported to Buchenwald concentration camp.

After liberation from National Socialism , he organized the rebuilding of the KPD in Jena. During this time he worked as the works council chairman of the electricity company. From 1946 he was secretary of the KPD and, after the forced unification of the SPD and KPD, also of the SED district leadership Jena-Land, at the same time for Stadtroda . Here he later also became district administrator . In 1947 he was appointed Interior Minister of the State of Thuringia (successor to Werner Eggerath ) and, after the dissolution of the states in 1952, was chairman of the Erfurt District Council for ten years (successor: Richard Gothe ). During this time he completed a distance learning course at the SED party college "Karl Marx" . Gebhardt was also a member of the district assembly and from 1961 to 1972 district chairman of the Society for German-Soviet Friendship (DSF).

During his time as Thuringian Minister of the Interior, Gebhardt helped to realize the project for the establishment of a “National Memorial” at the former Buchenwald concentration camp . He was also responsible for the implementation of the “ Verge Action ” in Thuringia. His handwritten note to Otto Funke about the number of people who were forcibly relocated from the border areas to the interior of the GDR “ Otto, Gen. King passed on. That would be the result of the commission's work to get rid of the vermin. “Is often described as an expression of the inhuman view of the GDR leadership.

During the GDR era, the 26th Polytechnic High School (POS) in Erfurt-Süd, today's KGS Am Schwemmbach 10, and the Grenzregiment 4, based in Heiligenstadt, were called "Willy Gebhardt".

Awards

literature

  • Steffen Kachel : A red-red special path? Social Democrats and Communists in Thuringia 1919 to 1949 (= publications of the Historical Commission for Thuringia, small series. Volume 29). Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-412-20544-7 , p. 550.
  • Andreas Herbst :  Gebhardt, Willy . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  • Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst: German communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 ( online ).
  • Thuringia Handbook: Territory, Constitution, Parliament, Government and Administration in Thuringia 1920 to 1995 / [Publication of the Thuringian Main State Archives Weimar]. Edited by Bernhard Post and Volker Wahl . Red. Dieter Marek. - Weimar: Verlag Hermann Böhlaus successor, 1999. - (publications from Thuringian state archives; 1). - ISBN 3-7400-0962-4 , p. 582.
  • 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. 212.
  • 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. 99.
  • Martin Broszat et al. (Ed.): SBZ manual: State administrations, parties, social organizations and their executives in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany 1945–1949 . 2nd Edition. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-486-55262-7 , p. 907.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Willi Gebhardt , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 20/1948 of May 3, 1948, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of the article freely available)
  2. ↑ Andreas Herbst:  Gebhardt, Willy . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  3. ^ Heinz Koch / Udo Wohlfeld: The German beech forest committee. The period from 1945 to 1958, = series of publications "found", issue 7 of the history workshop Weimar-Apolda, p. 34ff., ISBN 3-935275-14-5 .
  4. ↑ Thuringian Institute for Teacher Training, Curriculum Development and Media: The Hushed Terror - Forced Resettlement in the GDR, page 18 (PDF; 28 MB).
  5. ^ ND archive: Neues Deutschland from June 26, 1971 .
personal data
SURNAME Gebhardt, Willy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gebhardt, Willi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German editor and politician (SED)
DATE OF BIRTH June 20, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Niedersynderstedt
DATE OF DEATH May 12, 1973
Place of death Erfurt