Walter Ulbricht (1893 - 1973) |
Walter Ulbricht (30. June 1893 - 1. August 1973) was a German communist politician.
As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971, he held the most
influential role in the early existence of the
German Democratic Republic
(Deutsche Demokratische Republik, DDR).
Ulbricht was born in Leipzig as the son of a tailor. Both his parents worked actively
for the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, SPD).
He attended secondary school (Volksschule), and learned the trade of a joiner. Later,
he served in
World War I
from 1915 to 1918 on the Polish, Serbian and Western Fronts.
In 1918, Ulbricht joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany. A founding member
of the Communist Party of Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, KPD) in 1919,
Ulbricht attended the International Lenin School of the Komintern in Moscow in
1924/1925. The electors subsequently voted him into the regional parliament of
Saxony (Sächsischer Landtag) in 1926.
He became an Member of the German parliament (the Reichstag) from 1928 to 1933.
After the Nazi Party formed a government in 1933, Ulbricht lived in exile in Paris
and Prague from 1933 to 1938, then in Moscow from 1938 to 1945 during
World War II.
A leader of the East German communist
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
(Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED) from 1949 to 1971, he also served
as Staatsratsvorsitzender (Chairman of the Council of State: head of state) of the
German Democratic Republic
from 1960, when President Wilhelm Pieck died, until his
own death in 1973.
Erich Honecker
effectively ousted Ulbricht from power when he
had to hand over the leadership of the SED in 1971, although he remained the head
of state. He died at the Döllnsee near Berlin on August 1, 1973.
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