Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin
The Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin ( SEW ) was one with the SED and the DKP closely linked and guided by the SED Communist Party in West Berlin. It emerged in the twelve western districts of Berlin from the county organizations of the SED. Its membership fluctuated between 3000 and ( depending on the source ) 8000-11000 members. The election results of the SEW in elections to the Berlin House of Representatives were between 2.7 percent (1954 ) and 0.6 percent ( 1989) .. From November 1962 until his death in 1978, Gerhard Danelius was chairman of the SEW, his successor, was to his death in 1989, Horst Schmitt.
History
From the development of the theory of the emergence of a socialist German nation in the GDR after the construction of the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961 was followed by the so-called three -state theory of the Soviet Union since Khrushchev's ultimatum, and with it the GDR and therefore, the related parties followed them in the West. Therefore, from 1968 DKP also founded not have its own national association in West Berlin. The SEW was so from the perspective of the SED and the DKP, the Communist Party in the "special " respectively " independent political unit of West Berlin ".
The party was called on 12 November 1962 to 1969 SED West Berlin, from then on, SEW, from April 1990 until its dissolution on June 30, 1991 Socialist Initiative. Overall, the SEW was a Marxist- Leninist party, and ( which did not exist until the 1990s in West Berlin) to include in its SED and the DKP very similar. The SEW was funded annually during their entire existence to the change in the GDR in secret by the SED with 12 to 15 million DM, which the SEW however always denied. The same applies to the truth, and the theory - organ consistently for published by the SEW newspaper. The party work of the SEW was partially intertwined with the Deutsche Reichsbahn, as the railway was also in West - Berlin, GDR Director. For this reason it was on the railways, many operating groups of the SEW. The House of Representatives elections in 1950 boycotted the party in the later election of each catchment was clearly missed in the state parliament. In particular, the election result in 1975 was a bitter defeat for the party as well as for its then chairman Danelius, since the conditions for the SEW at this time were estimated to be very low and was expected with a significant gain votes.
The SEW had in the 1970s in the union GEW, IG Metall, in the peace movement, Chile Movement, the Renter movement and in some university departments such as the Department of Psychology, Free University of Berlin, in the theater and culture - operation at times an influential position. The inner Senate of West Berlin responded by inquiry at the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which resulted in the years 1976 to 1981 on 100 suspected or actual SEW members ( graduates of Pedagogical and other universities ) by the radical adoption because of constitutional hostility to the access to public services was denied.
Protests from SEW- members against the expatriation of Wolf Biermann and the arrest of Rudolf Bahro in the GDR were immediately suppressed. And in 1986 ordered the party chairman that the Chernobyl disaster in truth no letters could be published.
In 1980, the leader of a Euro -inspired communism and after Biermann 's expatriation initially largely conspiratorial working Marxist reform flow were excluded clarity from the party to the circular; further clarity pendant left at the same time the party; initially founded the dissidents the " Socialist Initiative" ( SI), they were partial list of alternatives at, among them Annette Schwarzenau ( later health councilor for the AL), Hannelore May, Wolfgang Gukelberger and Edwin Massalsky. This later ran for the Alliance 90/The Greens for the House of Representatives. With the exclusion of the so-called clarity fraction from the SEW democratization and change the strategy of the party was prevented. Since 1975, membership declined continuously. At its 16th session in 1989 the party's Executive Board adopted by a narrow majority a resolution that criticized the crackdown on the Chinese reform movement on Tiananmen Square. Thus, the SEW important first official off course the SED. Under pressure from the SED, however, the office of the SEW put at the 13th session of the Executive Board after an " oral supplement " before, in which the events were evaluated in terms of the SED again in China. This grew discontent and disorientation of the members of the party.
As a result of socio-political change in the GDR accounted for from the beginning of 1990, the secret financing of the party by the SED. The approximately 70 salaried employees were laid off, the party, or its successor Socialist initiative broke up in June 1991. The truth had already been renamed end of November 1989 in New newspaper and set in December 1989 after five issues. Some of the members of the SEW came after the end of the party to the PDS, among them Ernst Welters and Uwe Doering.
Youth organizations
The youth organization of the SEW was first called West Berlin's Free German Youth ( FDJW ) and renamed in May 1980 in the Socialist Youth League to Karl Liebknecht. The youth organization was formally independent, but pleaded to the policy of SEW and was guided and content of the party. That existed at the universities (compared to the youth organization more independent ) student organization Action Committee of Democrats and Socialists (ADS ), which played in the 1970s at the West Berlin universities a significant role and work closely with the temporarily associating several hundred members SEW- university groups at the Free University of Berlin ( FU) and the Technische Universität Berlin (TU), the College of Education (PH) and the Technical University of Applied Sciences ( TFH ), the Church University ( KiHo ), the College of Economics (BSE ) and the College of Fine Arts ( Academy of Fine Arts ) worked.
Election results at the Berlin House of Representatives election
Known members
Klaus Holzenkamp (1927-1995), Robert Katzenstein (1928-2006), Ronald M. Schernikau (1960-1991), Peter Wolter (* 1947), Horsta Krum ( b. 1941 ), Michael Sommer ( b. 1952 ).