Ernst Timm

Ernst Timm (16 October 1926 – 15 December 2005) 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 Rostock and was a member of the Central Committee of the SED.

Life and career Early career He was born in 1926 in Brandenburg an der Havel to a working-class family. After attending elementary school, he completed training as a metal aircraft builder from 1941 to 1944 at a branch of the Arado Flugzeugwerke in Brandenburg/Neuendorf. From 1944, he served voluntarily in the Kriegsmarine. From 1945 to 1949, he was a Soviet prisoner of war, during which time he attended several anti-fascist schools.

After the end of World War II, parts and machines of the Arado factories that were not destroyed by air raids were transported to the Soviet Union as reparations, and the company was liquidated. Therefore, Timm could not return to his profession after his release from captivity in 1949. In 1961, he became Bezirk Rostock SED Second Secretary, also responsible for Organization and Cadre Affairs, himself. Tisch was elected as Chairman of the FDGB. During his parliamentary tenure, he was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee from 1982.

In June 1989, he gained attention when, as a member of the Volkskammer, he confirmed the SED leadership's approval of the Tiananmen Massacre by the Chinese People's Liberation Army on 3 and 4 June 1989, and referred to the protesting students as "anti-constitutional elements."

Timm was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver in 1974 and the honor clasp to this order in 1986, and the Order of Karl Marx in 1984. He was removed by his party from the Volkskammer a week later, on 16 November 1989.

He was subsequently expelled from the FDGB in December 1989 and the SED on 16 January 1990.

After being charged with abuse of office and corruption in August 1990, he was sentenced on 16 February 1993, by the Rostock Regional Court to 15 months in prison for breach of trust, as he had taken 80,000 East German marks from a fund for people's representatives for the expansion of his house. The sentence was suspended after taking into account the pre-trial detention.

Reunified Germany Timm died in 2005 at the age of 79.