Ulbricht Group

Last updated
Walter Ulbricht seated in the People's Chamber (Volkskammer) after the 1950 East German general election. Photograph by Horst Sturm [de] (November 15, 1950), East Berlin, Bundesarchiv. Bundesarchiv Bild 183-08618-0005, Berlin, 2. Volkskammersitzung, Bildung DDR-Regierung.jpg
Walter Ulbricht seated in the People's Chamber (Volkskammer) after the 1950 East German general election. Photograph by Horst Sturm  [ de ] (November 15, 1950), East Berlin, Bundesarchiv.

The Ulbricht Group was a secret political administration composed of exiled members of the Communist Party of Germany (German : Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, or KPD) and the National Committee for a Free Germany (German : Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland, or NKFD), led by German politician Walter Ulbricht, [1] who flew from the Soviet Union back to Allied-occupied Germany on April 30, 1945. [2] Composed of functionaries from the KPD and ten anti-fascist German prisoners of war, their job was to seek out anti-fascist individuals and prepare the groundwork for the re-establishment of communist organizations and unions in post-war Berlin. There were two additional regional groups, the Ackermann Group in Saxony and the Sobottka Group in Mecklenburg. The Ulbricht Group was instrumental in the early development and establishment of the German Democratic Republic (German : Deutsche Demokratische Republik, or GDR), and many of the Group's members later became high-level officials in the country's government.

Contents

Political operation

The tasks for the Ulbricht Group and the other communist cadres who were to return to Allied-occupied Germany under the administration of the Allied Control Council (German : Alliierter Kontrollrat, or ACC) were defined at a meeting between Wilhelm Pieck and Georgi Dimitrov held in Moscow, Soviet Russia on April 25, 1945. [2] Dimitrov was then a high-level functionary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, working as the assistant division leader of the International Information Division. They were to prepare the Eastern regions to accept and follow the instructions of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (German : Sowjetische Militäradministration in Deutschland, or SMAD) so that the Nazi government could be dismantled. The Denazification process in post-war Germany was to convince the German people to turn over Nazi war criminals and to reject Nazism altogether. [2] The Group was to calm the German people and assure them that the Soviet Red Army would neither destroy nor enslave them; but the Group was also to convey that Germans had to understand that they bore the responsibility for Hitler's rise to power, giving force to Nazi policies and causing the start of World War II. [2]

In this narrative to be promulgated by the Ulbricht Group, German communists and social democrats had tried to warn the German people of the coming catastrophe, and were now there to help the people out of their distress. [2] While communicating this message, the Group was to establish a basis for the future of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). [3] Moreover, they were to seek out anti-fascist individuals and prepare the groundwork for the re-establishment of communist organizations and unions in post-war Berlin. The youngest member of the Group was 24-year-old Wolfgang Leonhard. [1] [4] As a result, the Free German Trade Union Federation (German : Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, or FDGB) was founded in the Soviet occupation zone. The Soviet Military Administration in Germany increasingly required communists to be represented in trade union leadership. [5] After the foundation of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (German : Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, or SED) through a forced merger between the KPD and the SPD in 1946, purges were implemented immediately. Christian-social and other independent social-democratic union members were dismissed and had to flee to West Germany.

The Ulbricht Group left from the Hotel Lux, [1] where they had been living in exile (some for years), and flew from Moscow to Minsk, then to Calau (near Międzyrzecz). Some members of the Group did not know what their assignment was, nor how long it would last, until after they landed. [1] They landed in an airfield and were met by a Soviet officer, who drove away with Ulbricht. The rest left by truck for Bruchmühle, about 30 kilometers (19 mi) east of Berlin and the offices of Marshal Georgy Zhukov, the first commander of the Soviet occupation zone (German : Sowjetische Besatzungszone, or SBZ). The Ulbricht Group began working from there on May 2, 1945, though not much could be done with the city in flames after the Battle of Berlin. In the evening, Ulbricht met with the Group and explained their assignment. They were to cover all 20 districts in Berlin and begin building local administrations. In each, they were to seek out as many social democrats as possible, also a civil servant with a Ph.D. from each local administration who was willing to work with the Soviets, and a cleric to lead a religious advisory council. Communists were to be installed in each district as assistant administrators, and to head up the departments for personnel and development. [1] The Group worked from Bruchmühle till May 8, after which they moved to the Friedrichsfelde area of Berlin.

On May 6, 1945, Ulbricht gave the Soviet commander of Berlin, Nikolai Berzarin, the first list of suggested names to fill important administrative posts in Berlin. On May 12, 1945, the district administrators and city councils were appointed from Ulbricht's list without exception. Paul Markgraf, one of the ten anti-fascist German prisoners of war, was appointed the "Berlin Police President", also on Ulbricht's initiative. [6] In the beginning of June 1945, Ulbricht, Ackermann, and Sobottka traveled back to Moscow to give the first reports and get their further instructions. On June 4, 1945, they met with Wilhelm Pieck, Andrei Zhdanov, and Stalin. Stalin urged them to found a nationwide, working-class communist party that would remain open for the proletariat, farmers, and intellectuals. He wanted the party to work for a unified Germany, and said that, in his opinion, the Western regions wanted to split the country into partitions; according to Pieck, their goal was to "[complete] the civil-democratic revolution through a civil-democratic government". [7] The founding manifesto of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was written by Ackermann himself. In it, the new party spoke openly against a Sovietization of Germany. It stated that the goal was to "continue to its conclusion the civil-democratic transformation begun with the revolutions of 1848", and, through land reforms, to eliminate the "remnants of feudalism". Hence ,the final goal of the KPD was the "establishment of an anti-fascist, democratic republic with all democratic rights and freedoms for the people". [8] With the re-establishment of the KPD on June 11, 1945, the Ulbricht Group reached its first goal. On July 10, 1945, it moved into the KPD's Central Committee building.

Existence concealed

Until 1955 and the publication of Wolfgang Leonhard's memoir, Die Revolution entläßt ihre Kinder (later published in English as Child of the Revolution), knowledge of the Ulbricht Group was kept secret. In Leonhard's opinion, it was kept secret to the general public, both in East Germany and West Germany, so as not to emphasize the pivotal role of German communist revolutionaries who had been previously exiled to Moscow, Soviet Russia in the anti-Nazi German resistance and the establishment of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) after the end of World War II. After 1955, several versions of the story appeared regarding the composition of the Group and the order of events leading to the appointments.

There is disagreement among historians of World War II as to whether or not Stalin and Ackermann were earnest in their affirmation of a parliamentarian republic with democratic rights and freedoms for its citizens. Leonhard reported the oft-cited comment that Ulbricht himself made during this period: "It is quite clear. It must look democratic, but we must have everything in hand." [9] Some historians affirm that by Spring 1945, the establishment of a communist-dominated government in the Soviet occupation zone and the proclaimed democracy was merely a transitional stage, [10] [11] but at least one historian believes that Stalin earnestly pursued the creation of a Western-style democratic republic for post-war Germany, as it was the only way he could secure the responsibility from the other Allied governments due to the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, which without him would easily have been able to deny access to the resources of the Ruhr region that he desperately needed as reparations to rebuild the war-ravaged Western regions of the Soviet Union. [12] [note 1]

Members

Regional groups

Saxony

Mecklenburg

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ In fact, the Americans did halt the delivery of reparations to the Soviet Union from the U.S. occupation zone in early May 1946. [13]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Stefan Aust and Frank Schirrmacher, Du gehst in das Institut Nummer 99 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (May 14, 2005). Retrieved November 20, 2011 (in German)
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Spilker, Dirk (2006). "The "Special German Road to Socialism"". The East German Leadership and the Division of Germany: Patriotism and Propaganda, 1945–1953. Oxford and New York: Oxford Academic. pp. 50–57. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199284122.003.0002. ISBN   9780199284122.
  3. ↑ Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR: SAPMO-BArch, NY 4036/ 500, Bl. 109 (Urschrift), Bl. 39–40 (Klarschrift) (in German)
  4. ↑ Hermann Weber, Hotel Lux - Die deutsche kommunistische Emigration in Moskau (PDF) Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung No. 443 (October 2006), p. 61. Retrieved November 12, 2011 (in German)
  5. ↑ Naimark, Norman M. The Russians In Germany: a History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995
  6. ↑ For more on the ten anti-fascist prisoners of war and Ulbricht's list of names, see: Jochen Staadt  [ de ], Wir packen mit an, Ordnung zu schaffen ["We Help Create Order"], in: Forschungsverbund SED-Staat der Freien Universität Berlin "SED State" Research Association of the Free University of Berlin (Eds.), Zeitschrift des Forschungsverbundes SED-Staat [Journal of the "SED State" Research Association], Edition No. 28/2010, pp. 90-117, here pp. 92-94 (in German)
  7. ↑ Wilhelm Pieck's notes from June 4, 1945, cited by Wilfried Loth, Stalins ungeliebtes Kind. Warum Moskau die DDR nicht wollte, Rowohlt Berlin (1994), p. 24 (in German)
  8. ↑ Rolf Steininger, Deutsche Geschichte 1945-1961. Darstellung und Dokumente in zwei Bänden [German History 1945-1961: Presentation and Documents in Two Volumes], Fischer, Frankfurt am Main (1983), Vol. 1, p. 159 (in German)
  9. ↑ Wolfgang Leonhard, Die Revolution entläßt ihre Kinder [The Revolution Dismisses its Children] (in German), Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne (1955), p. 440 (in German)
  10. ↑ Manfred Wilke (Ed.): Anatomie der Parteizentrale. Die KPD/SED auf dem Weg zur Macht [Anatomy of the Party Headquarters: The KPD/SED on the Way to Power], Akademie Verlag, Berlin (1998), p. 45 (in German)
  11. ↑ Klaus Schroeder, Der SED-Staat. Geschichte und Strukturen der DDR [The "SED State": History and Structure of the GDR], Bayerische Landeszentrale für politische Bildung [Bavarian State Center for Political Education], Munich (1998), p. 81f (in German)
  12. ↑ Wilfried Loth, Stalins ungeliebtes Kind. Warum Moskau die DDR nicht wollte [Stalin's Unloved Child: Why Moscow Didn't Want the GDR], Rowohlt, Berlin (1994), p. 10 (in German)
  13. ↑ Detlef Junker (Ed.), The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War, 1945-1990, Vol. 1 German Historical Institute. Cambridge University Press (May 17, 2004), p. 53. ISBN   978-0-521-79112-0. Retrieved November 21, 2011
  14. ↑ Biographical details, Fritz Erpenbeck Bundesunmittlebare Stiftung des öffentlichen Rechts. Retrieved November 21, 2011 (in German)
  15. ↑ Biographical details, Karl Maron Bundesunmittlebare Stiftung des öffentlichen Rechts. Retrieved November 21, 2011 (in German)
  16. ↑ Biographical details, Hans Mahle (born Heinrich August Ludwig Mahlmann) Bundesunmittlebare Stiftung des öffentlichen Rechts. Retrieved November 21, 2011 (in German)
  17. ↑ Biographical details, Walter Köppe Bundesunmittlebare Stiftung des öffentlichen Rechts. Retrieved November 21, 2011 (in German)
  18. ↑ Biographical details, Richard Gyptner Bundesunmittlebare Stiftung des öffentlichen Rechts. Retrieved November 21, 2011 (in German)
  19. ↑ Biographical details, Gustav Gundelach Bundesunmittlebare Stiftung des öffentlichen Rechts. Retrieved November 21, 2011 (in German)
  20. ↑ Biographical details, Otto Fischer Bundesunmittlebare Stiftung des öffentlichen Rechts. Retrieved November 21, 2011 (in German)
  21. 1 2 "Namensliste der drei KPD-Einsatzgruppen vom 27. April 1945" Archived 2014-12-15 at the Wayback Machine German Federal Archives. BArch NY 4036/517. Retrieved November 22, 2011 (in German)
  22. ↑ Biographical details, Karl Rabb Bundesunmittlebare Stiftung des öffentlichen Rechts. Retrieved November 21, 2011 (in German)

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.