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Hans Albrecht (politician)

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Hans Albrecht
Albrecht in 1989
First Secretary of the
Socialist Unity Party in Bezirk Suhl
In office
15 August 1968 – 2 November 1989
Second Secretary
  • Karl-Heinz Heiliger
  • Walter Weiss
  • Gerhard Koszycki
Preceded byOtto Funke
Succeeded byPeter Pechauf
Volkskammer
Member of the Volkskammer
for Bezirk Suhl
In office
16 June 1986 – 16 November 1989
Preceded byOtto Funke
Succeeded byRosel Neuhäuser
ConstituencyBad Salzungen, Hildburghausen, Meiningen, Neuhaus am Rennweg, Sonneberg, №1
In office
26 November 1971 – 16 June 1986
Preceded byHerbert Recknagel
Succeeded byOtto Funke
ConstituencySuhl-Stadt, Suhl-Land, Ilmenau, Schmalkalden, №2
Personal details
Born
Hans Albrecht

(1919-11-22)22 November 1919
Bochum, Province of Westphalia, Free State of Prussia, Weimar Republic (now North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany)
Died27 March 2008(2008-03-27) (aged 88)
Berlin, Germany
Political partySocialist Unity Party
(1946–1989)
Other political
affiliations		Social Democratic Party
(1945–1946)
Alma mater
Occupation
  • Politician
  • Party Functionary
  • Locksmith
Awards
Central institution membership
Other offices held

Hans Albrecht (22 November 1919 – 27 March 2008) was an East German politician and party functionary of the Socialist Unity Party (SED).

Albrecht served as the First Secretary of the SED in Bezirk Suhl for over twenty-one years, becoming known for his particularly authoritarian leadership style. In the Berlin Wall shooting trials, he was sentenced to five years and one month in prison for manslaughter.

Life and career in East Germany

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Early life and career

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Hans Albrecht was born in Bochum in the heavily industrialized Ruhr area (then part of the Prussian Province of Westphalia) on 22 November 1919 to a working-class family. A few months after completing his apprenticeship as a locksmith in 1938, he was drafted into the Luftwaffe of the Wehrmacht for the duration of World War II.[1]

After the war, Albrecht settled in Saxony, worked as a heating engineer, and joined the newly reconstituted Social Democratic Party (SPD) in his hometown of Bennewitz. He became a member of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) in 1946 following the SPD's forced merger with the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). He became a full-time party functionary the same year, rising through the ranks of the SED in the district of Grimma in northwest Saxony.[1]

In 1950, he attended a one-year course at the SED's "Karl Marx" Party Academy in Berlin. Subsequently, he served as First Secretary of the SED in Frankfurt (Oder) from 1951 to 1952, Eberswalde from 1952 to 1954 and finally Stalinstadt from 1954 onward. In April of that year (IV. Party Congress), he was elected as a candidate member of the Central Committee of the SED. He held this status until January 1963 (VI. Party Congress), after which he was made a full member.[1]

In 1958, Albrecht was promoted to the regional government of Bezirk Frankfurt (Oder) as chairman of the Bezirk Economic Council,[1] rising to head the Council of Bezirk Frankfurt (Oder) in August 1960,[1][2] formally making him head of government of the Bezirk. However, he was de facto subservient to the local SED leadership. From March 1963,[2] he was delegated to the Industrial Institute of the Bergakademie Freiberg, which he completed a with a degree in industrial engineering (Dipl.-Ing. oec.). Afterwards, he was made first deputy chairman of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection,[1] succeeding Günter Sieber, who became Minister for Trade and Supply.[1][3]

Bezirk Suhl SED First Secretary

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On 15 August 1968,[4] he succeeded Otto Funke as First Secretary of the Bezirk Suhl SED leadership, a position he held for 21 years until 1989.[1][5][6] Funke officially retired for health reasons.[4] Bezirk Suhl had the smallest population and was the most geographically isolated Bezirk of the GDR.

Albrecht (right of center) and Volkskammer President Horst Sindermann (right) visiting farmers in Kaltensundheim in February 1988

He additionally became member of the Volkskammer in 1971,[1] nominally representing constituencies in his Bezirk, first Suhl and its suburbs,[7] then the rural southeast of Bezirk Suhl.[8] In 1972, he was elected to the National Defense Council of the GDR,[1][9] likely due to the Bezirk's long western border with West Germany.

Albrecht's twenty-one-year rule over Bezirk Suhl was viewed negatively. His leadership style was authoritarian,[10] occasionally described as dictatorial,[11] and he was viewed as a hardliner. Albrecht has been described as a "Icke-Berliner" with little connection to Bezirk Suhl.[12]: 218–219  He also became known for shuffling local SED functionaries around to make sure none of them would be able to establish a power base and challenge him.[12]: 218 f. 

In 1988, he unsuccessfully tried to pressure Bad Salzungen SED First Secretary Hans-Dieter Fritschler to rescind his statements in the book Der Erste.[13][14][12]: 230  The book provided an unfalsified account of Fritschler's work as a local SED functionary and detailed the GDR's problems, including dysfunction stemming from the Bezirk Suhl SED leadership.[6]

Peaceful Revolution

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Early on during the Peaceful Revolution, on 2 November 1989, the Bezirk Suhl SED removed Albrecht from the position of First Secretary and installed reformer Peter Pechauf as his successor.[1][5][12]: 219 [15] He was removed by his party from the Volkskammer two weeks later, on 16 November 1989.[16] At its last session on 3 December 1989, the Central Committee expelled Albrecht from the Central Committee and from the SED shortly before its collective resignation.[1][17]

Shortly after the Peaceful Revolution, Albrecht was arrested for abuse of power and embezzlement.[1][18] In October 1992, he was sentenced by the Meiningen Regional Court to 22 months in prison for incitement to embezzlement.[19] He did not have to serve the sentence because he had already served more than half of it in pre-trial detention.

Reunified Germany

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After the German reunification, he was indicted in May 1991 as part of the Berlin Wall shooting trials with another arrest warrant. As part of the trials against former members of the National Defense Council of the GDR, he was charged with "complicity in manslaughter" (political responsibility for the fatal shootings at the Berlin Wall) before the Berlin Regional Court.[1][9] Albrecht's defense repeatedly tried claiming he was unable to stand trial for health reasons.[1]

On 16 September 1993, he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for incitement to manslaughter. The verdict was changed in the appeal by the Federal Court of Justice on 26 July 1994, to manslaughter as an indirect perpetrator and the sentence was increased to five years and one month.[9][20] Since Albrecht's defense raised constitutional complaints, he initially remained free.[1]

On 12 November 1996, the Federal Constitutional Court dismissed the constitutional complaints of Albrecht and others,[1][9][20][21] arguing that the killing of refugees was the most serious injustice that precluded the justification of those responsible by GDR laws.[9][20] Albrecht served his sentence in a Berlin prison.[1]

Following his release from prison, Albrecht went into retirement. He passed away on 27 March 2008 in Berlin at the age of 88.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Müller-Enbergs, Helmut (2010). "Albrecht, Hans". www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de. Wer war wer in der DDR? (in German). Berlin: Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  2. ^ a b "Districts of East Germany". www.worldstatesmen.org. Retrieved 2025-08-02. Aug 1960 - Mar 1963 Hans Albrecht
  3. ^ Müller-Enbergs, Helmut (2010). "Sieber, Günter". www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de (in German). Berlin: Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship. Retrieved 2024-05-05. 1963 – 65 1. Stellv. des Vors. des Komitees der ABI; […] 1965 – 72 Minister für Handel u. Versorgung
  4. ^ a b "Hans Albrecht 1. Sekretär der Bezirksleitung Suhl". Neues Deutschland. Berlin State Library. 1968-08-16. p. 1. Retrieved 2025-08-02.
  5. ^ a b "Bezirksleitung Suhl der SED (1952 - 1989)". www.bundesarchiv.de (in German). German Federal Archives. 2006. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  6. ^ a b "Sisyphus in Bad Salzungen". Der Spiegel (in German). 1989-10-29. ISSN 2195-1349. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  7. ^ Volkskammer der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik 1971-1976 (PDF) (in German). Berlin: VEB Staatsverlag der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. 1972. p. 779. Retrieved 2025-08-02.
  8. ^ Volkskammer der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik 1986-1990 (PDF) (in German). Berlin: VEB Staatsverlag der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. 1987. p. 41. Retrieved 2025-08-02.
  9. ^ a b c d e "Informationen über das Verfassungsbeschwerde-Verfahren "Strafgerichtliche Verurteilungen im Zusammenhang mit der Tötung von DDR-Flüchtlingen an der innerdeutschen Grenze"". www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de (in German). Federal Constitutional Court. 1996-11-08. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  10. ^ "Vortrag über den SED-Provinzfürsten". www.insuedthueringen.de (in German). Suhl: Freies Wort. 2019-11-19. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  11. ^ Schütt, Hans-Dieter (2021-04-16). Aurich, Eberhard (ed.). Vergangenheit will nicht vergehen (PDF) (in German). p. 4. Retrieved 2024-05-05. Ich habe auch festgehalten, weshalb der 1. Sekretär der SED-Bezirksleitung Suhl, Hans Albrecht, die Veröffentlichung am liebsten verhindert hätte. Weil darin nämlich auch seine diktatorischen Anwandlungen zur Sprache kamen.
  12. ^ a b c d Scherzer, Landolf (1997). Der Erste: mit einem weiterführenden Bericht "Der letzte Erste". AtV (in German) (2nd ed.). Berlin: Aufbau-Taschenbuch-Verl. ISBN 978-3-7466-1241-6.
  13. ^ Hübner, Wolfgang; Scherzer, Landolf (2021-09-22). "Der Erste". nd-aktuell.de (in German). Neues Deutschland. Retrieved 2024-05-05. Bevor das Buch mit deinen damals ungewöhnlich ehrlichen Worten zum Druck freigegeben wurde, ordnete das selbstherrliche Mitglied des ZK der SED, der dogmatische Erste Sekretär der SED-Bezirksleitung Suhl, Hans Albrecht, an, dass du alles widerrufst. Um eine Veröffentlichung zu verhindern, solltest du zu Protokoll geben, dass deine Worte in meinem Manuskript verfälscht oder erfunden worden sind. Du hast damals ohne Angst vor Konsequenzen gewagt, dich diesen inquisitorischen Anweisungen zu widersetzen und stattdessen gesagt: »Alles ist wahr! Es sind meine, nur meine Worte.«
  14. ^ "Der Erste". www.aufbau-verlage.de (in German). 2020-03-10. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  15. ^ Kleps, Erhard. "Rücktritte der 1. Sekretäre der SED-Bezirksleitungen im November 1989". www.ddr89.de (in German). Berlin. Retrieved 2024-05-05. 02.11. Suhl: Hans Albrecht, Nachfolger am 02.11. Peter Pechauf
  16. ^ Kleps, Erhard (ed.). "Chronik der DDR Donnerstag 16. November 1989". www.ddr89.de (in German). Retrieved 2024-07-30. Wie mitgeteilt wurde schlug der Generalsekretär des Zentralkomitees, Egon Krenz, der Fraktion vor, dass folgende Abgeordnete aus verschiedenen Gründen ihr Mandat niederlegen: Hans Albrecht, […].
  17. ^ "Protokoll der 12. Tagung des SED-Zentralkomitees, 3. Dezember 1989 (Abschrift eines Tonmitschnitts)". www.chronik-der-mauer.de (in German). Retrieved 2024-05-05. Hans Albrecht, […] werden aus dem Zentralkomitee ausgeschlossen. Auf Grund der Schwere ihrer Verstöße gegen das Statut der SED und in Anbetracht zahlreicher Forderungen und Anträge von Kreisdelegiertenkonferenzen werden sie zugleich aus der SED ausgeschlossen.
  18. ^ "Das Ende Die Auflösung der Stasi im DDR-Bezirk Suhl". Stasi-Unterlagen-Archiv (in German). Stasi Records Agency. Archived from the original on 2023-03-29. Retrieved 2024-05-05. Gleichzeitig wurde der langjährige 1. Sekretär der Suhler SED-Bezirksleitung, Hans Albrecht, wegen Untreue und Amtsmissbrauch angeklagt.
  19. ^ "Knast für SED-Chef". Die Tageszeitung (in German). Meiningen. 1992-10-17. p. 4. ISSN 0931-9085. Retrieved 2024-05-05. Der ehemalige SED-Bezirkschef von Suhl, Hans Albrecht (72), ist am Freitag wegen Anstiftung zur Untreue im schweren Fall und vorsätzlichen unerlaubten Waffenbesitzes zu einer 22monatigen Haftstrafe verurteilt worden.
  20. ^ a b c "Krankheit oder Schuldspruch". stern.de (in German). 2004-08-06. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  21. ^ "Urteile gegen SED-Funktionäre bestätigt". DIE WELT (in German). 2011-11-15. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
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