Walter Ulbricht

Walter Ulbricht, (born June 30, 1893, Leipzig, Germany—died August 1, 1973, East Berlin, East Germany), German Communist leader and head of the post-World War II German Democratic Republic, or East Germany. He was a cabinetmaker by trade by joining the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1912 and during World War I served on the Eastern Front, deserting twice. After the war he entered the new Communist Party of Germany (KPD). A bureaucrat and organizer, he was elected to the party’s central committee in 1923. With the rise of Joseph Stalin, He became instrumental in Bolshevizing the German party and organizing it on a cell basis. He became a member of the Reichstag (parliament) in 1928 and led the Berlin party organization from 1929. After the accession of Adolf Hitler to power in Germany (January 1933), He fled abroad, serving for the next five years as an agent of both the KPD and the Comintern in Paris and Moscow and in Spain during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), all the time relentlessly persecuting Trotskyites and other deviationists. Back in Moscow at the start of Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union (1941), He was assigned to propagandize German prisoners of war and process information from the German army. Returning to Germany on April 30, 1945, He helped reestablish the KPD and was charged with organizing an administration in the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany. He played a leading role in the merger of the KPD and the SPD into the Socialist Unity Party (SED; April 1946), which controlled East Germany until 1989. On the formation of the German Democratic Republic (October 11, 1949), He became deputy prime minister, adding the post of general secretary of the SED in 1950. When President Wilhelm Pieck died in 1960, the office of the presidency was abolished and a council of state instituted in its stead. Subsequently, He became chairman of the council, thus formally taking supreme power. He crushed all opposition and became so powerful that he was able to block the de-Stalinization movement that swept eastern Europe after the death of the Soviet dictator. Ulbricht’s leadership and policies were largely modelled on those of Stalin. He implemented a five-year economic plan for industrialisation and modernisation, collectivising both agricultural and industrial labour. A cult of personality was also constructed around Ulbricht. He was praised highly in party and government propaganda (“our people are represented by a truly great human being, one honoured by the entire progressive world”, one public servant said of Ulbricht). He also created two mass movements: the  Freie Deutsche Jugend  (Free German Youth) and  Demokratischer Frauenbund Deutschlands  (German Women’s League); both were socialist in intent but reminded many of Nazi-era organisations. Ulbricht also imposed political controls and expanded both the size and power of the  Stasi, the notorious East German secret police. Only after the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961 did the government finally begin to ease its strict control and permit a certain amount of economic liberalization and decentralization. East Germany became one of the most industrialized countries in eastern Europe, yet Ulbricht remained implacably opposed to the Federal Republic of Germany. Forced to retire as first secretary of the SED in May 1971 when the Soviet Union opened new relations with West Germany, he retained his position as head of state until his death.