WALTER ULBRICHT

'Walter Ulbricht' (June 30, 1893 – August 1, 1973) was a German communist statesman. As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971, he held arguably the central role in the early development and establishment of German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

Contents

Life

Early life

First World War and Weimar years

Nazi and war years

Creation of the GDR

The New Economic System

Dismissal, Death & Legacy

Notes

See also

External links

Life

Early life

Ulbricht was born in Leipzig as the son of a tailor. He spent eight years in primary school (''Volksschule''), and learned the trade of a joiner. Both his parents worked actively for the Social Democratic Party (SPD), and Walter joined the party in 1912.

First World War and Weimar years

He served in World War I from 1915 to 1917 in Galicia on the Eastern Front, and in the Balkans.^[1] He deserted in 1917 as he had been opposed to the war from the beginning. Imprisoned in Charleroi, in 1918 he was released during the German revolution.
In 1917 he became a member of the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) after it split off from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) over support of Germany's participation in the First World War. During the November Revolution of 1918 he became a member of the soldier's soviet of his army corps and later a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1920, joining its Central Committee in 1923. Ulbricht attended the International Lenin School of the Comintern in Moscow in 1924/1925. The electors subsequently voted him into the regional parliament of Saxony (''Sächsischer Landtag'') in 1926. He became a Member of the ''Reichstag'' for South Westphalia from 1928 to 1933 and was KPD chairman in Berlin from 1929.
In the years before the 1933 Nazi seizure of power, there were frequent disturbances caused by the presence of paramilitary forces of left and right. Violence connected with demonstrations was common, with supporters of each side fighting each other and the police. In 1931 the Communists in Berlin decided on a policy of killing two police officers for every communist demonstrator killed by police, and as a result Walter Ulbricht urged fellow communists Heinz Neumann and Hans Kippenberger to plan the murder of two Berlin police officers, Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck. The killing was carried out by Erich Ziemer and Ulbricht's later chief of national security, Erich Mielke. In 1932, the Comintern ordered the Communists to cooperate with the Nazis, so Ulbricht and Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda chief of the Nazi Party, both urged their respective constituents to support a planned strike. The strikers were appalled by the scene of Nazis and Communists marching together and the strike was halted after five days. ^[2]

Nazi and war years

The Nazi Party attained power in Germany in January 1933, and very quickly began a purge of Communist and Social Democrat leaders in Germany. Following the arrest of the KPD's leader, Ernst Thälmann, Ulbricht campaigned to be Thälmann's replacement as head of the Party. Many competitors for the leadership were killed in the Soviet Union thanks to Ulbricht.^[3]
Ulbricht lived in exile in Paris and Prague from 1933 to 1937. The German Popular Front under the leadership of Heinrich Mann in Paris was dissolved after a campaign of behind-the-scenes jockeying by Ulbricht to place the organization under the control of the Comintern. Ulbricht tried to persuade the KPD founder Willi Münzenberg to go to the Soviet Union, allegedly so that Ulbricht could have "them take care of him". Münzenberg refused. He would have been in jeopardy of arrest and purge by the NKVD, a prospect in both Münzenberg's and Ulbricht's minds.^[4] Ulbricht spent some time in Spain during the Civil War, as a Comintern representative, ensuring the liquidation of Germans serving on the Republican side who were regarded as not sufficiently loyal to Stalin; some were sent to Moscow for trial, others were executed on the spot.^[5] Ulbricht lived in the Soviet Union from 1937 to 1945.
Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Ulbricht was active in a group of German communists under NKVD supervision (a group including, among others, the poet Erich Weinert and the writer Willi Bredel) which, among other things, translated propaganda material into German, prepared broadcasts directed at the invaders, and interrogated captured German officers. In February 1943, following the surrender of the German Sixth Army at the close of the Battle of Stalingrad, Ulbricht, Weinert and Wilhelm Pieck conducted a Communist political rally in the center of Stalingrad which many German prisoners were forced to attend. The political pragmatist Lavrenty Beria commented that Ulbricht was the greatest idiot that he had ever seen. ^[6]

Creation of the GDR

On April 30, 1945, the Ulbricht Group of party functionaries led by him ("Ulbricht group") arrived in Germany on orders of the Soviet Communist Party, to begin reconstruction of the German Communist party along orthodox Stalinist lines. Within the Soviet occupied zone of Germany, the Social Democrats and Communists united to form the Stalinist dominated Socialist Unity Party of Germany (''Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands'' or ''SED''), and Ulbricht played a key role in this.
After the founding of the German Democratic Republic on October 10, 1949, Ulbricht became Deputy Chairman in the Ministerial Council under Chairman Otto Grotewohl. In 1950, he became Secretary General of the Central Committee of the SED, and First Secretary in 1953. After the death of Josef Stalin his position was in danger for some time, because of his reputation as a prototype Stalinist. Ironically, he was saved by the Berlin Uprising of June 17, 1953, because the Soviet leadership feared that deposing Ulbricht might be construed as a sign of weakness.
At the third congress of the SED in 1950, Ulbricht announced a [five-year plan] concentrating on the doubling of industrial production. As Stalin was at that point keeping open the option of a re-unified Germany, it was not until 1952 that the party moved towards the construction of a socialist society in East Germany.^[7]
By 1952, 80 percent of industry had been nationalised. Blindly following an outmoded Stalinist model of industrialisation - concentration on the development of heavy industry regardless of the cost, availability of raw materials, and economic suitability - produced an economy that was short of consumer goods, and those that were produced were often of shoddy quality. Growth was also hampered by a deliberate exclusion from the higher educational system of children of 'bourgeois' families. One consequence was the flight of large numbers of citizens to the West: over 360,000 in 1952 and the early part of 1953. ^[8]
In 1957, Ulbricht arranged a visit to a east german collective farm at Trinwillershagen in order to demonstrate the GDR's modern agricultural industry to the visiting soviet politburo member Anastas Mikoyan. Following the death of Wilhelm Pieck in 1960, the SED abolished the function of President of the GDR and instead created a new institution, the ''Staatsrat'' or State Council, of which Ulbricht, as leader of the party, became Chairman and therefore Head of State. From this point until the early seventies, Ulbricht was the unquestioned leader of the party and the country.
Although modest economic gains were being made, emigration still continued. By 1961, 1.65 million had fled to the west.^[9] On August 13, 1961, work began on what was to become the Berlin Wall, only two months after Ulbricht had emphatically denied that there were such plans ("Nobody has the intention of building a wall").^[10]
The 1968 invasion by Warsaw Pact troops of Czechoslovakia and the suppression of the Prague Spring were also applauded by Ulbricht - East German soldiers were among those massed on the border but did not cross over, probably due to Czech sensitivities about German troops on their soil - and earned him a reputation as a hard-line Stalinist.

The New Economic System

From 1963, Ulbricht and his economic adviser Wolfgang Berger attempted to create a more efficient economy through a New Economic System (''Neues Ökonomisches System'' or NÖS). This meant that under the centrally coordinated economic plan, a greater degree of local decision-making would be possible. The reason was not only to stimulate greater responsibility on the part of companies, but also the realisation that decisions were sometime better taken locally. One of Ulbricht's principles was the 'scientific' execution of politics and economy - making use of sociology and psychology but most of all the natural sciences. The effects of the NÖS, which corrected mistakes made in the past, were largely positive, with growing economic efficiency.
It was not very popular within the party, however, and from 1965 onwards opposition grew, mainly under the direction of Erich Honecker and with tacit support of Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev. Ulbricht's preoccupation with science meant that more and more control of the economy was being relegated from the party to specialists. Also, Ulbricht's motivations were at odds with communist theory, which didn't suit the ideological hardliners.

Dismissal, Death & Legacy

Ulbricht's difficult relationship with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev proved to be his eventual undoing. On May 3, 1971 Ulbricht was forced to resign from virtually all of his public functions 'due to reasons of poor health' and he was replaced - with the consent of the Soviets- by Erich Honecker. Only the ceremonial position of Chairman of the State Council was left to him. Additionally, an honorary position of 'chairman of the SED' was created especially for him. Walther Ulbricht died at a government guesthouse in Döllnsee north of East Berlin, on August 1, 1973, during the World Festival of Youth and Students, having suffered a stroke two weeks earlier. He was honoured with a major state funeral and buried among other communists in Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde.
Ulbricht remained loyal to Leninist and Stalinist principles throughout his life, rarely able or willing to make compomises. Unflexible and unlikeable, he was an unlikely figure to attract much public affection or admiration. However, he also proved to be a shrewd and intelligent politician who knew how to get himself out of more than one difficult situation. Despite stabilising the GDR to some extent, he never succeeded in raising the standard of living in the country to a level comparable to that in the West.
In 1956, Ulbricht was awarded the Hans Beimler Medal, for veterans of the Spanish Civil War, which caused controversy among other recipients, who had actually served on the front line.^[11]
He was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on June 29 1963. ^[12]. When Ulbricht visited Egypt in 1965, he was awarded by Nasser the Great Collar of the Order of the Nile.[2]
Ulbricht lived in Majakowskiring, Pankow, East Berlin. Ulbricht was married twice; in 1920 to Martha Schmellinsky and from 1953 until his death to Lotte Ulbricht (née Kühn) (1903-2002). The couple adopted a daughter from the Soviet Union called Beate (1944-1991).

Notes

1. Frank, Mario, ''Walter Ulbricht. Eine Deutsche Biographie'' (Berlin 2001) 52-53.
2. Frank, Mario, ''Walter Ulbricht. Eine Deutsche Biographie'' (Berlin 2001) 88-89.
3. Frank, Mario, ''Walter Ulbricht. Eine Deutsche Biographie'' (Berlin 2001), 117-121. Frank only gives an example of Kippenberger. Other competitors were killed as well, but it is very likely the initiative of the NKVD, given the anti-German frenzy in the Soviet union at that time.
4. Frank, Mario, ''Walter Ulbricht. Eine Deutsche Biographie'' (Berlin 2001), 124-139.
5. Robert Solomon Wistrich, ''Who's Who in Nazi Germany'', Routledge, 2001; John Fuegi, ''Brecht and Company: Sex, Politics and the Making of the Modern Drama'', Grove Press, 2002, p.354; Noel Annan, ''Changing Enemies: The Defeat and Regeneration of Germany'', Cornell University Press, 1997, p.176
6. Frank, Mario, ''Walter Ulbricht. Eine Deutsche Biographie'' (Berlin 2001), 241.
7. Martin Kitchen, ''A History Of Modern Germany 1800-2000'', Blackwell, 2006, p.328
8. Martin Kitchen, ''A History Of Modern Germany 1800-2000'', Blackwell, 2006, p.329
9. Steven Ozment, ''A Mighty Fortress'', Granta, London, 2005 p.294, quoting Lothar Kettenacker, ''Germany Since 1945'' (Oxford, 1997), pp 18-20 and 50-51, and Hagen Shulze, ''Modern Germany'', p. 316
10. In an interview with Annamarie Doherr, Berlin correspondent of the Frankfurter Rundschau, 15 June 1961 [1]
11. Josie McLellan, ''Anti-Fascism and Memory in East Germany: Remembering the International Brigades, 1945-1989'', p.67
12. Biography at the website on Heroes of the Soviet Union and Russia

See also

★ New Economic System

★ Lotte Ulbricht

External links

★ Extracts from ''Walter Ulbricht — A Life for Germany'', an illustrated 1968 book on Ulbricht