Erwin Kramer

Erwin Kramer ( born August 22, 1902 in Pila / West Prussia, † November 10, 1979 in Berlin) was Minister of Transportation of the GDR and Director General of the Deutsche Reichsbahn.

Kramer graduated after attending the junior high school and an internship in Reichsbahnausbessungswerk Schneidemühl 1923 to 1929 to study electrical engineering and railway science at the Technical University Berlin. He was a member of the Communist Youth League of Germany, from 1924 to 1927 the Red Student Aid and in 1929 the Communist Party since 1919. 1930 to 1932 he was a foreman at the Reichsbahn Berlin.

Kramer was arrested in 1932 and emigrated because of an impending treason trial in the USSR. He worked at the Central Research Institute for Transport Studies in Moscow in the areas of rationalization and automation, and attended courses at the Communist University of the West. In 1937 he attended a course tactics at the Military School "First Cavalry Army " in Tambov and then took over as engineer officer of the XI. International Brigade part in the Spanish Civil War.

In 1939 he was interned in French camps Saint- Cyprien, after which he returned to the USSR. He worked as an engineer in a company and from 1941 as a speaker and translator of German editors of Moscow Radio. In October 1941, he was released from the station, booked by the KPD leadership and evacuated to Kuibyshev. Following the sale of food stamps on the black market, he was expelled in 1943 from the KPD.

After his return to Germany in 1946 Kramer joined the SED. He was from 1946 to 1949 head of the mechanical engineering department of the German Economic Commission, and from 1946 Vice- President of the Reichsbahn Berlin, from 1949 Deputy Director General and 1950 to 1970, Director General of the Deutsche Reichsbahn. He was also Deputy Minister since 1953 and from 1954 to 1970 Minister of Transport. 1954 to 1970 he was a member of the SED Central Committee and from 1958 to 1979 deputy of the People's Chamber ( among others in the Committee on Foreign Affairs).

Kramer was awarded the 1959 National Prize, 1967 with the honor Clasp to the Patriotic Order of Merit, in 1970 with the Karl -Marx- Order and the Order of the Great Patriotic War and in 1977 the Star of People's Friendship.

The Engineering School of Traffic Engineering and Raw Potsdam last wore the nickname " Erwin Kramer ".