Werner Walde
Werner Walde | |||||||||||||
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![]() Walde in 1989 | |||||||||||||
First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party in Bezirk Cottbus | |||||||||||||
In office 1 June 1969 – 9 November 1989 | |||||||||||||
Second Secretary |
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Preceded by | Albert Stief | ||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Wolfgang Thiel | ||||||||||||
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Personal details | |||||||||||||
Born | Werner Walde 12 February 1926 Döbeln, Free State of Saxony, Weimar Republic | ||||||||||||
Died | 26 June 2010 Cottbus, Brandenburg, Germany | (aged 84)||||||||||||
Political party | SED-PDS (1989–1990) | ||||||||||||
Other political affiliations | Socialist Unity Party (1946–1989) Social Democratic Party (1946) | ||||||||||||
Alma mater |
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Occupation |
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Awards |
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Central institution membership
Other offices held
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Werner Walde (12 February 1926 – 26 June 2010) was a German politician and party functionary of the Socialist Unity Party (SED).
In the German Democratic Republic, he served as the longtime First Secretary of the SED in Bezirk Cottbus and was a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED.
Life and career
[edit]Walde came from a working-class family.[1] After attending elementary school in Döbeln-Großbauchlitz, he completed training as an administrative employee from 1940 to 1943. He held leadership positions in the German Youth and the Hitler Youth. From June 1943 to April 1945, he was deployed in the Reich Labor Service in Poland, France, and the Netherlands, ultimately as the head foreman. In April 1945, he was conscripted into the Wehrmacht as a soldier and was captured in early May 1945 in Hagenow, initially by American forces and later by British captivity, which he experienced from June to July 1945 in Eutin.[2]
After his release, he worked as a farm laborer for a farmer in Westerode until August 1945. From August 1945 to December 1950, he worked as an employee of the Social Security Fund in Döbeln.[2]
After the Wende, Walde retired, dying in Cottbus on 26 June 2010.[2]
Political career
[edit]Early career
[edit]In 1945, he became a member of the FDGB (Free German Trade Union Federation) and was a member of the factory trade union leadership from 1946 to 1950. In February 1946, he joined the SPD (later SED), and in 1948, he joined the FDJ (Free German Youth).
In 1950, he attended the local SED Party School in Meißen, where he worked as an assistant and teacher until 1953. Afterward, from 1953 to 1955, he served as the deputy and acting principal of the SED Bezirk Cottbus Party School.[2]
Bezirk Cottbus SED career
[edit]From 1954 to 1960, he pursued a distance learning program to obtain a diploma in Social Sciences at the "Karl Marx" Party Academy. From 1955 to 1961, he worked as a staff member and department head of the SED in Bezirk Cottbus. From August 1961 to February 1964, he served as the First Secretary of the SED in Senftenberg and as a district council delegate.[1]
From 1964 to 1966, he studied at the University of Economics in Berlin, earning a degree in economics. Subsequently, from April 1966 to June 1969, he was the Secretary for Organization and Cadre Work and Second Secretary of the SED in Bezirk Cottbus.[2]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b6/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-1988-0722-026%2C_LPG_Schwarze_Pumpe%2C_Besuch_von_Werner_Felfe.jpg/170px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-1988-0722-026%2C_LPG_Schwarze_Pumpe%2C_Besuch_von_Werner_Felfe.jpg)
On 1 June 1969, Walde rose to the position of the First Secretary of the SED in Bezirk Cottbus, Albert Stief being seriously ill.[3]
Walde's tenure was viewed ambivalently. While he lived a modest lifestyle for a top SED functionary and was viewed as sticking up for the districts in his Bezirk, he was known for being a hardliner when it came to military service and those refusing to do so. When it came to art and culture, he was orthodox and clueless, something he later admitted.[3]
Walde was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in 1967, 1969 and 1974, the Karl Marx Order in 1976, and the Hero of Labour title in 1986.[4]
SED Central Committee
[edit]From 19 June 1971 (VIII. Party Congress) to December 1989, he was a member of the Central Committee of the SED. From November 1971 to 1989, Walde was a delegate of the Bezirk Cottbus Council and a member of the Volkskammer. From 22 May 1976 (IX. Party Congress) until his removal from this position in November 1989, he was a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED,[2] the de facto highest leadership body in East Germany, the Bezirk Cottbus being an important centre for coal and energy.[3]
Unlike other First Secretaries such as Werner Eberlein, Walde did not rise further to become a full member, most likely due to him being a former member of the SPD, a glass ceiling in a party long dominated by former communists.[5]
Peaceful Revolution
[edit]During the Wende, on 9 November 1989, the SED in Cottbus removed him from the position of First Secretary and installed reformer Wolfgang Thiel as his successor. Walde consequently resigned from the Politburo he had just been reelected to. He was removed by his party from the Volkskammer a week later, on 16 November 1989.
On 20 January 1990, he was expelled from the now-renamed SED-PDS party in an unanimous vote, the party Central Arbitration Commission citing personal enrichment and his energy policy mismanagement.[6] Nevertheless, Walde was contrite that he can no longer be "useful to the party of the working class".[7]
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Chronik-Biographie: Werner Walde". www.chronikderwende.de. Retrieved 2023-11-04.
- ^ a b c d e f "Walde, Werner | Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur". www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de (in German). Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship. Retrieved 2023-11-04.
- ^ a b c "Aufstieg und Fall eines Parteisoldaten - Cottbuser Geschichten - Themen - WochenKurier". www.wochenkurier.info (in German). 2019-07-15. Retrieved 2023-11-04.
- ^ Hubrich, Dirk (2013). Verleihungsliste zum Ehrentitel "Held der Arbeit" der DDR von 1950 bis 1989 (PDF) (in German). Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ordenskunde e. V. p. 51.
- ^ NDR. "SED - Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands". www.ndr.de (in German). Retrieved 2023-12-04.
- ^ "Werner Walde", Ausschluss. Das Politbüro vor dem Parteigericht (in German), Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, retrieved 2023-11-04
- ^ Reinecke, Stefan (2020-01-20). "PDS-Rauswurf von Egon Krenz 1990: Belastung für die Partei". Die Tageszeitung (in German). ISSN 0931-9085. Retrieved 2023-12-16.
- 1926 births
- 2010 deaths
- People from Döbeln
- German schoolteachers
- Socialist Unity Party of Germany politicians
- Members of the Volkskammer
- Members of the 6th Volkskammer
- Members of the 7th Volkskammer
- Members of the 8th Volkskammer
- Members of the 9th Volkskammer
- Candidate members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
- Members of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
- Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze
- Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver
- Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit in gold
- Recipients of the Banner of Labor
- Recipients of the Order of Karl Marx
- German communists