Communist who chaired the German Economic Commission, the forerunner of the GDR government, and led East German economic policy
Born in Feuerbach near Stuttgart, he worked as a metal presser at Bosch and passed through the Spartacists and the USPD into the KPD in 1919, becoming the party’s leading agricultural policy maker in the 1920s. Imprisoned after the Nazis came to power, he emigrated to the Soviet Union and in the Spanish Civil War commanded the XI International Brigade. Interned in France and handed to the Gestapo by Vichy in 1942, he was liberated at Mauthausen. In March 1948 he became chairman of the German Economic Commission (DWK), which carried out the eastern currency reform and the first plans. In the GDR he was a Politburo member, deputy prime minister and chairman of the State Planning Commission; at the Politburo session of 8 July 1953 he recommended replacing Ulbricht, yet kept his posts. Minister of Machine Construction and then of Foreign Trade, he died of a heart attack in 1961.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1919Joined the KPD
- 1923Head of the KPD agricultural division
- 1937–1938Commander of the XI International Brigade
- 1943–1945Mauthausen concentration camp
- 1948–1949Chairman of the German Economic Commission
- 1950–1961SED Politburo member; deputy prime minister
- 1955–1961Minister of Foreign and Inter-German Trade
Related historical events
- 1945–1949East Germany: from Soviet military administration to the German Democratic RepublicChairman of the German Economic CommissionChaired the DWK, which became a government in all but name in 1948.
- 1952.07–1953.07The East German uprising of 1953Politburo memberBacked Herrnstadt’s collective-leadership proposal at the Politburo session of 7–8 July.