Kurt Vieweg
Kurt Vieweg ( born October 29, 1911 in Göttingen, † December 2, 1976 in Greifswald) was one of the leading agricultural politician in the early years of the GDR. He was temporarily secretary general of the VdgB, deputy of the People's Chamber and a member of the Central Committee of the SED.
Youth and Emigration
Kurt Vieweg was born the son of a bank clerk in Göttingen. After attending high school he graduated from in 1930 and 1931 trained as agricultural assistants in Eisleben. In his youth he was a member of the traveling bird and the country-folk movement. 1930 Vieweg joined the HJ one in which he remained until 1932, and brought it there until the young deputy Colonel. At the same time he was active from 1931 to KJVD. 1932 Vieweg eventually became a member of the KJVD in Weissenfels and a member of the KPD. His communist activity took place in Germany initially its final point as an employee of the KJVD for Saxony -Anhalt.
In the fall of 1933, Vieweg emigrated to Denmark. He first worked for the International Red Aid in Lyngby and Gentofte. From 1935 until the occupation of the country in 1940 was Vieweg guest student at the Agricultural University in Copenhagen. In parallel, he was from 1936 employees of the illegal KPD section line north. Vieweg was doing to a group led by Walter Weidauer that called itself " Bauer Commission " and should build contacts with farmer groups in Germany. This group published " Bauer letters " out for Vieweg under the pseudonym " Oswald " article wrote. Since he did not necessarily proved to be a Communist in the external representation, he could officially studying agriculture at the beginning of 1940. With the German occupation in April 1940 Vieweg, however, was again forced into illegality. He spent the next few years largely political inaction. He dealt mainly with creating material on the Scandinavian agriculture for the Moscow Communist Party headquarters. 1943 sent the KPD most of its members in Denmark to Sweden, including Vieweg. There he was briefly interned in a camp at Tyllesand. After that he worked as a forest and factory workers. As leader of the Communist Party group in Gothenburg - Borås he came here probably the first time with Herbert Wehner in contact. Since Vieweg to successfully demonstrate his guest student in Copenhagen, he was allowed to resume in 1944 as part of a Swedish aid program for Scandinavian Hitler refugees at the Agricultural University in Uppsala Ultuna his studies. During his stay in Sweden, he was influenced primarily by the agricultural policy program of the Swedish SAP. This influence was evident in his published in 1944 program " The farmers and the upcoming democratic republic ," in which he had called for the creation of cooperatives, but also spoke out in favor of maintaining the capitalist mode of production. This program and its study were evidence of Viewegs profiling to the agricultural experts of the exiled KPD. In the spring of 1945, Vieweg returned to Denmark. He was first secretary of the Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee in Copenhagen and was later hired as an employee at the Danish Ministry of Social Affairs. Prior to his return to Germany, Vieweg was also the political head of the Copenhagen KPD group.
Back in Germany
In the summer of 1946, Vieweg returned with his wife Gertrud over Poland in the Soviet occupation zone to Halle back. As a former Communist Party member, he was now, of course, be included in the SED. He was assigned to the officials of the VdgB and became its Deputy National Secretary for Saxony -Anhalt. However, he soon rose to the National Secretary. Mid- August 1947 Vieweg was not last in charge as the successor of Anton Jadasch because of his professional qualifications, by decision of the party to the post of Secretary General of the VdgB. The first German peasant congress where dissolved the national associations and the Federation was established, legitimized this decision by an official election. Vieweg now developed an intense activity and lectured at various universities about his ideas on agricultural policy, in which he defended, among others, the family farm again and again. He argued consistently for the retention of the former agricultural structures and for the " full development of the private initiative of farms " from. This scientific activity led in 1951 to appeal to the Full Member of the German Academy of Agricultural Sciences. 1948 Vieweg was appointed as an employee in the Office of the German Economic Commission ( TWC ), the predecessor of the East German government.
In January 1949, Kurt Vieweg was co-opted onto the executive committee of the SED and on the III. SED Party Congress in 1950 elected to the Central Committee of the SED, in which he remained until 1954, and determined there to the Secretary of Agriculture issues. In this role, Vieweg designed as part of the then Soviet policy towards Germany several, even all-German agricultural programs, which also includes German and Scandinavian social democratic programmatic, but also ideas of the Reich were incorporated. In the parliamentary elections on 19 October 1950 he was also elected to the SED, which he remained for the entire first term. On behalf of the Central Committee of the SED began Vieweg and also with the construction of illegal equipment, including the conspiratorial " all-German Working Group for Agriculture and Forestry ", in Germany, where he also conducted.
Enemy of the Party Vieweg
In the spring of 1952, this illegal ( from DDR view) west work of VdgB but was uncovered. This event and an investigation of Viewegs activity in the Scandinavian emigration by the Central Party Control Commission of the SED in the context of a party purge Vieweg brought gradually into disrepute. Since it was expected that his flight was allowed to monitor him by the Ministry of State Security. In consequence of the surveys by the Central Party Control Commission Vieweg were accused despite very contradictory accounts of his activities in Scandinavia by witnesses questionnaire fakes that made it necessary according to the Commission to remove him at least from the Secretariat of the SED. Officially a resignation for health reasons was announced. Even from his position as General Secretary VdgB he was released. Vieweg has not dropped completely, but involved in the establishment of the Institute of Agricultural Economics at the German Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Furthermore, at first he succeeded in an academic career. He received his doctorate in 1955 at the Humboldt University of Berlin agr habilitated to Dr. and was appointed professor of the German Academy of Agricultural Sciences. As the editor, together with Otto Rosary of the multi-volume reference work "Handbook of cooperative farmers ", he received the National Prize of the GDR in the same year. For his institute Vieweg claimed the status of a guide in the agro-economic research in the GDR. This claim and the creation of internal party brochures that have not recently influenced by his study trip to Sweden and Denmark in November 1955, and in many high SED functionaries met with little enthusiasm, however, had not advantageous for him. To him and his institution by the SED created an Agricultural Commission to promote collectivization. Disillusioned by this policy and affected by the revelations of the XX. Congress of the CPSU and the events of autumn 1956 in Hungary Vieweg criticized the existing agricultural policy of the SED. Vieweg submitted in November 1956 by his own program therefore before with the title "New agricultural program for the development of agriculture in the construction of socialism in the GDR." On the 30th Central Committee Plenum on January 30, 1957, this program was, however, discredited by Walter Ulbricht as " restoration of capitalism in agriculture". Thus, the rod over Vieweg was broken. The Central Party Control Commission of the SED decided the expulsion from the party on 18 March 1957. Along with this went the forced resignation from political office.
Escape and imprisonment
In this situation, Vieweg saw only one way out in the run in the Federal Republic of Germany. On March 27, 1957, he sat down across from West Berlin. He initially found refuge in Herbert Wehner's apartment. On October 19, however, Vieweg returned surprisingly back in the GDR. Contrary to existing agreements likely he was arrested immediately, it was opened on 27 March 1958, the arrest warrant. In October 1959, the Supreme Court of the GDR Kurt Vieweg convicted of " treason " to twelve years in prison, along with forfeiture of all titles and claims. He was released from prison Bautzen II through a pardon of the Council of State in December 1964. On December 27, 1990, the judgment was set aside by the district court in Berlin.
Greifswald academics
Vieweg was assigned in 1965 a position as assistant at the Nordic Institute of the University of Greifswald. In 1969 he was research group leader and he took up teaching again. As part of its research activities Vieweg also worked for the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Stasi. 1971 Kurt Vieweg was appointed full professor. In 1974, he went into retirement.