X-Nico

6 unusual facts about Socialist Unity Party of Germany


Egon Krenz

He succeeded Erich Honecker as leader of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and head of state in October 1989, but was ousted just under three months later amid the collapse of the communist regime.

Friedrich Elchlepp

He returned home to the Soviet Zone of Occupation and joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in 1946.

Hans-Joachim Kasprzik

In 1966, Kasprzik directed the comedy Hände hoch oder ich schieße ("Hands up, or I shoot") with Rolf Herricht, a film that was banned by the Communists and not released.

Horst Sindermann

After 1946 he was a member of the Socialist Unity Party (SED), created from a forced merger of Communists and Social Democrats in the Soviet Occupation Zone.

Rudolf Jahn

Rudolf (Rudi) Jahn (November 4, 1906 – September 30, 1990) was a German politician (KPD, SED) and Minister-President of Brandenburg (1949–1952).

Socialist Unity Party of Germany

The industrial sector, employing 40% of the working population, was subjected to further nationalization, which resulted in the formation of "people's enterprises" (German: Volkseigener Betrieb, VEB).


Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski

He joined the Free German Youth in 1951 and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED) in 1955.

Bund der Deutschen

The goal of the SED was to form a so-called National Front of bourgeois and "national" forces ("national-gesinnte"), similar to the communist-controlled 'National Front' in East Germany.

Hans Bunge

On 7 January 1966, the politically unconventional Bunge, who was friends with Wolf Biermann, Heiner Muller and Robert Havermann, was dismissed from the Academy as a result of the 11th Plenum of the Central Committee of the SED (Socialist Unity Party).

Kerstin Kaiser

Following her studies of Russian at the Leningrad University (now the Saint Petersburg State University), she worked as a teacher at the party school of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) (Parteischule beim ZK der SED "Karl Liebknecht").

Kurt Maetzig

He also directed the film Das Kaninchen bin ich (The Rabbit is Me) (1965), which was one of twelve films that were banned in East Germany after the 11th Plenum of the SED's Central Committee for being too critical of the internal social problems within the country.

Kurt Vieweg

He was at various times Secretary General of the VdgB (the Peasants Mutual Aid Association), deputy in the parliament (the Volkskammer) and a member of the Central Committee of the SED.

Max Seydewitz

Max Seydewitz (December 19, 1892 — February 8, 1987) was a German politician (SPD, SAPD and SED) and Minister-President Saxony in East Germany).

Otto Suhr

He had to cope with the forceful SED merger of Social Democrats and Communists in the Soviet occupation zone and East Berlin, the Berlin Blockade and the final division of the city, when the assembly was compelled to move into the Rathaus Schöneberg in the American sector.

Popular front

For example, East Germany was ruled by a "National Front" of all anti-fascist parties and movements within parliament (Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Liberal Party, Farmers' Party, Youth Movement, Trade Union Federation, etc.).

Sophienkirche

A reconstruction would have been quite possible but a comment by Walter Ulbricht, the party chief of the SED, "... a socialist city does not need Gothic churches", doomed the church.

Wilhelm Höcker

Wilhelm Höcker (born June 29, 1886 in Holzendorf, Mecklenburg-Schwerin; d. November 15, 1955 in Güstrow) was a German politician (SPD, SED) and former Minister-President of Mecklenburg.


see also