John Peet (1915–88)

John Scott Peet ( born November 27, 1915 in London, † July 26, 1988 in East Berlin ) was a British journalist who lived a long time in the GDR. He was, amongst others, editor in chief of Democratic German Report.

Life

John Peet was born the son of a journalist and a teacher. He was from 1920 to 1927 private lessons and then from 1927 to 1934 a school in York. From 1934 he worked as a local reporter. In 1935 he became a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. In 1935, he was recruited to the Royal Guard Regiment, but that he left of his own accord soon. From 1935 to 1936 he worked as an English teacher and freelance journalist based in Vienna. Then he went to Prague, where he again worked as an English teacher. In August 1937 he sailed from London via Paris to Spain and took from September 1937 to December 1938 as a soldier in the 15th Brigade of the British Battalion of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War in part. In December 1938 he returned to London. At first he was unemployed. From 1939 - 1942 he was then a soldier in the British army in Palestine. From 1942 to 1945 he was editor in chief of Radio Jerusalem, and from 1945 chief correspondent for the Reuters news agency, first in Vienna, from 1946 in Prague, and from 1947 to 1950 in West Berlin.

Transfer to the GDR

In early June 1950, he stepped over to the GDR. In preparing this step helped him his acquaintances from his time in Vienna, Georg Honigmann and Walter Hollitscher. On 12 June 1950 he gave at an international press conference at the Gerhart Eisler also was present, a statement, after which he " Anglo-American warmongers can not serve longer." He worked as a journalist in the East province and joined the Association of German Journalists ( VDJ ) at. From 1952 he was editor and managing editor of the 14- day appearing Democratic German Report, a magazine for the East German propaganda abroad. In 1952 he married the Bulgarian Ravensbrück survivor Georgia Tanewa (1923 - 2012) and has two children with her.

Since Peet knew several of the defendants in Prague Slánský process, he was repeatedly questioned in 1953 by the Central Party Control Commission. In December 1975, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED decided to close the magazine Democratic German Report, because the publisher is " objective and not subjective reasons to ensure a politically unassailable line of the magazine" was in a position. Background was the increasingly critical view of the GDR society, including the reprint of an article by Stefan Heym from the New York Times Magazine. From 1976, Peet was retired. He also acted as a translator, mainly translating works of Marx and Engels into English.

Honors

Works

• The Long Engagement: Memoirs of a Cold War Legend. London, 1989 (Eng. The Spy who was not. Europa Verlag, Vienna, Zurich, 1991, ISBN 3-203-51098-7 ).