Arthur Pieck

Arthur Pieck (28 December 1899 – 13 January 1970) was a German politician, typesetter and translator. He was a committed political activist who became a stage and movie actor and, later, a Communist party official. He topped off his varied career, between 1955 and 1960, as a senior director - ultimately General Director - of Interflug, the East German national airline. After this he served, between 1960 and 1965, as a junior Transport Minister.

Arthur Pieck's father, Wilhelm Pieck, served as the President of East Germany between 1949 and 1960. Paris, like Moscow, was becoming an informal headquarters location for the German Communist Party in exile. Their objective in Paris – at least as far as Pieck and party comrades in Moscow were concerned – was to set up and develop a western European branch office of the IRTB. However, the project fizzled out when the Germans learned that Piscator was in danger of falling victim to the dictator's paranoia if he returned to Moscow. Piscator stayed in Paris, emigrating to the United States three years later, while Arthur Pieck appears quietly to have returned to Moscow.

Personal setbacks By 1936 the Piecks had made their home in Moscow, and it was in nearby Podlipiki that at the end of August Arthur Pieck's mother, Christine, who was staying with Arthur's elder sister Elly Winter, fell ill with a serious lung disease. She died on 1 December 1936 at the Kremlin Clinic in Moscow. It was only twenty years later, on 29 December 1956, that her ashes were transferred to Germany and interred in the Friedrichsfelde Cemetery. Meanwhile, in another personal blow, the German government removed Arthur Pieck's German citizenship on 24 March 1937, leaving him prima facie stateless.

He was formally demobilised on 16 May 1945, less than two weeks after the end of the war. In November 1945 Arthur Pieck married Margarete "Grete" Lode (1902–1952), a friend from his IRTB days as an organiser of Agitprop stage shows whom he had known since 1929 or earlier. A succession of well regarded and lucrative jobs followed. 1957 Ernst Moritz Arndt Medal 1969 Patriotic Order of Merit gold clasp