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Wilhelm Pieck | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Pieck in 1946 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| President of East Germany | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 11 October 1949 – 7 September 1960 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chancellor | Otto Grotewohl | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Karl Dönitz(asPresident of the Reich) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Walter Ulbricht(asChairman of the State Council) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chairman of the Socialist Unity Party | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 22 April 1946 – 25 July 1950 Serving with Otto Grotewohl | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Deputy |
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| Preceded by | Himself(as Chairman of theKPD) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Walter Ulbricht (as General Secretary) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chairman of the Communist Party of Germany | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 1 February 1934 – 22 April 1946 Acting: 1 February 1934 – 18 August 1944[note 1] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | John Schehr | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | East:Himself(asCo-Chairman of the Socialist Unity Party) West:Max Reimann (1948) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | Friedrich Wilhelm Reinhold Pieck (1876-01-03)3 January 1876 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 7 September 1960(1960-09-07) (aged 84) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Party | SPD(1895–1917) USPD(1917–1919) KPD(1919–1946) SED(1946–1960) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Other political affiliations | Spartacus League(1914–1919) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Children | Elly Winter Arthur Pieck Eleonore Staimer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Occupation |
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| Signature |  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Central institution membership
Other offices held
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Friedrich Wilhelm Reinhold Pieck (German pronunciation:[ˈvɪlhɛlmˈpiːk]; 3 January 1876 – 7 September 1960) was a Germancommunist politician who served as theco-chairman of the Socialist Unity Party from 1946 to 1950 and as the onlypresident of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1949 until his death in 1960.[1]
Pieck had been active in theSPD since the 1890s, breaking from the party in 1917 over his opposition to theFirst World War. He co-founded theSpartacus League and theKPD, rising to become chairman of the latter organization following the imprisonment ofErnst Thälmann andJohn Schehr by theNazis. After the end of theSecond World War, he played a key role in the1946 merger of the KPD and SPD into theSocialist Unity Party of Germany, which served as the ruling party of East Germany from 1949 until 1989.[2]
Pieck was born into a Catholic family,[3] as the son of thecoachman Friedrich Pieck and his wife Auguste in the eastern part ofGuben, in what was then theGerman Empire[4] and is nowGubin,Poland. Two years later, his mother died. The father soon married the washerwoman Wilhelmine Bahro. After attending elementary school, the young Wilhelm completed a four-year carpentry apprenticeship. As a journeyman, he joined the German Timber Workers Association in 1894.
As a carpenter, in 1894 Pieck joined the wood-workers' federation, which steered him towards joining theSocial Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) the following year.[4] Pieck became the chairman of the party urban district in 1899, and in 1906 became full-time secretary of the SPD. The same year, he was elected to theBürgerschaft of Bremen. In 1914, he moved to a three-room apartment in Berlin-Steglitz. By now he had his own study with many shelves full of books. In May 1915, he was arrested at the big women's demonstration in front of theReichstag and kept in "protective custody" until October. As Bremen Party secretary in 1916, Pieck had askedAnton Pannekoek to continue teaching socialist theory in the party school.[5]
Although the majority of the SPD supported the German government inWorld War I, Pieck was a member of the party's left wing, which opposed the war. Pieck's openness in doing so led to his arrest and detention in amilitary prison. After being released, Pieck briefly lived in exile inAmsterdam.[4] Upon his return to Berlin in 1918, Pieck joined the newly foundedCommunist Party of Germany (KPD).
On 16 January 1919 Pieck, along withRosa Luxemburg andKarl Liebknecht, was arrested in Berlin'sWilmersdorf district and taken to the Eden Hotel.[6] Liebknecht and Luxemburg were then killed while "being taken to prison" by a unit ofFreikorps.[7] While the two were being murdered, Pieck claimed that he managed to escape. Due to lingering suspicions about Pieck's reported escape, KPD chairmanErnst Thälmann called Pieck before a party court chaired byHans Kippenberger in 1929. The party court's decision was never published and Kippenberger was executed in Moscow after a secret trial in 1937.[8] According toWaldemar Pabst (the officer who gave the order to kill Liebknecht and Luxemburg), Pieck did not actually escape, but was released in return for providing details about the military plans and hiding places of other KPD members.[9][10]
In 1922, he became a founding member of theInternational Red Aid, serving first on the executive committee. In May 1925, he became the chairman of theRote Hilfe.[4]
Pieck held several elected offices in theWeimar Republic. He served in theLandtag of Prussia from 1921 to 1928 and again from 1932 to 1933, theReichstag from 1928 to 1933, theBerlin City Council from 1929 to 1933, and thePrussian State Council from 1930 to 1932.[11]
On 4 March 1933, one day before theReichstag election, Pieck's family left theirSteglitz apartment and moved into a cook's room. His son and daughter had been in theSoviet Union since 1932 whileElly Winter was still in Germany. At the beginning of May 1933, he left first toParis and then toMoscow.[4] In Moscow, Pieck served the Communist Party in a variety of capacities. From 1935 until 1943, he held the position of Secretary of theCommunist International. In 1943 Pieck was among the founders of theNational Committee for a Free Germany, an anti-Nazi organisation created by the Soviets aimed at Germans.
On 22 June 1941, Pieck and his family were in their country house on the outskirts of Moscow. Pieck came downstairs at six o'clock to his children's bedroom and said: "Children, get up, it was announced on the radio that war is over.Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, but that will be the end". In March 1942, the family was able to return home after the Soviet Armed Forces won theBattle of Moscow.[citation needed]
At the conclusion of the war in 1945 Pieck returned to Germany with the victoriousRed Army.[12] A year later, he helpedengineer the merger of the eastern branches of the KPD and SPD into theSocialist Unity Party (SED). He was elected as the merged party's co-chairman, alongside former SPD leaderOtto Grotewohl. His hand appeared alongside Grotewohl's on the SED's "handshake" logo, derived from the SPD-KPD congress establishing the party where he symbolically shook hands with Grotewohl.
In October 1949, on the territory of theSoviet occupation zone theGerman Democratic Republic, or East Germany wasformally established. Pieck was elected president of the new country.[4] He served as East Germany's first (and last) president until his death in 1960.[13]
Nominally, for the GDR's first year, Pieck was the number-two man in the government behind Grotewohl, who became the new country's first prime minister. In the East German political hierarchy, the prime minister was the top state official, while the president nominally ranked second.[citation needed]
He lost the co-chairmanship of the ruling SED (which he held with Grotewohl) in 1950, whenWalter Ulbricht became the party's General Secretary as the party restructured along more orthodox Soviet lines. Nonetheless, he retained his other posts, including the presidency, due toJoseph Stalin's trust in him.[12]
Pieck was already 73 years old at the time of his initial election as president. He nominally held the second highest state post in the GDR (behindPrime Minister Grotewohl)[citation needed] and served as SED co-chairman for the first four years of the party's existence. He was also a member of the SED's Politburo, the highest authority in the party. Despite this, he played a mostly minor role in the party, particularly after 1950.
On 13 July 1953, he suffered a second stroke. He also had progressiveliver cirrhosis and existingascites. A detailed medical report composed before the second stroke mentioned "mild paralysis on the right, a slight drooping of the corner of the mouth, breathing wheezing or snoring, slowed down pulse, tone of the limb musculature lowered ...".[14]
In August 1960 he moved to a new summer residence, the converted former mansion of theHermann Göring Leibförsters near "Carinhall".[15]
In March 1956, due to health reasons Pieck was hardly able to fulfill all obligations as Head of State. He attended only a few events such as the Central Committee meeting in January 1957 and the opening of the5th Party Congress of the SED in July 1958. The last months of his life spent Pieck in his country house in the Schorfheide, where he received the leadership of foreign delegations to the10th anniversary of the GDR in October 1959.[16]
Pieck died atMajakowskiring 29,Pankow,East Berlin. He was honoured with astate funeral, cremated and buried at theMemorial to the Socialists (German:Gedenkstätte der Sozialisten) in theFriedrichsfelde Central Cemetery,Berlin.
He was married to Christine Häfker,[2] a garments worker whom he met in a large dance hall inBremen. At first, her parents did not want her to go out with a "red", but once she was pregnant, she was allowed to marry Wilhelm on 28 May 1898, on the condition that a traditional wedding in a church would still take place.[17] On the wedding day Christine waited impatiently for Pieck to arrive at the church. At the last minute, he finally did, still carrying communist leaflets. In November 1936, his wife contractedpneumonia for the third time, dying on 1 December of the same year.
The Piecks' daughter,Elly Winter (1898–1987), held various posts in the SED and East German government.[18] Their sonArthur Pieck (1899–1970) served as head of the East German national airlineInterflug from 1955 to 1965, after having held various administrative posts in East Germany, for instance at theGerman Economic Commission.[19] The youngest child,Eleonore Staimer (1906–1998), worked as a party official and, for a time, as a diplomat.[20]
Hero of Labour (1951)[21]
Order of Karl Marx (1953)[21]
Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold (1954)[21]_BAR.png)
Banner of Labour (1960)[21]
Grand Cross of theOrder of the White Lion (1956)[22]
Media related toWilhelm Pieck at Wikimedia Commons| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by | President of the German Democratic Republic 1949–1960 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by Post created | Chairman of theSocialist Unity Party of Germany (withOtto Grotewohl) 1946–1950 | Succeeded by Walter Ulbricht (as First Secretary) |
| President |  | |
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| Chairmen of theState Council | ||
| President of thePeople's Chamber | ||
