Fritz Selbmann

Friedrich Wilhelm "Fritz" Selbmann (29 September 1899 – 26 January 1975) was a German communist politician and writer who served in several legislative positions in the Weimar Republic and East Germany between 1932 and 1963. In the latter state, he also served as Minister of Industry and Heavy Industry from 1949 to 1955, and as Deputy Minister-President of the Council of Ministers from 1955 to 1958.

A manual laborer and veteran of World War I, Selbmann became a regional leader of the Communist Party during the Weimar era. He spent the twelve years of Nazi rule in prison and, after 1940, in a series of concentration camps, though he survived.

Biography Provenance and early years Selbmann was born at Lauterbach a small town in the hills to the northeast of Frankfurt. His father worked as a coppersmith. He also undertook factory work during this period and, in 1916, became a member of the . In 1917 he became a soldier in the First World War, serving in France and Belgium.

Crisis years He combined his membership of the Prussian parliament with other party functions, serving as "Polleiter" (literally, "policy leader") with the regional party leadership team ("Bezirksleitung") in Upper Silesia from May 1930. He was elected not simply as a "list candidate", but as a representative of electoral district 29 (Leipzig).

During this period the focus of Selbmann's political energies was on "united action by the working class and the triggering of mass struggle against the dangers of fascism" ("für die Aktionseinheit der Arbeiterklasse und die Entfaltung des Massenkampfes gegen die faschistische Gefahr"). By contrast, the National Socialist share of the national vote fell back in that election, even though they remained the largest single party in what was by now an extremely fragmented Reichstag. With the parliamentary process still completely deadlocked and increasingly discredited the National Socialists took power in January 1933 and lost no time in transforming Germany into a one-party dictatorship. That made political activity (except in support of Nazi policy) illegal, and the authorities quickly became particularly zealous in attending to those with a political past or present that involved the Communist Party. On 7 February 1933 Selbmann was one of the participants at the , celebrated subsequently (especially during the "East German" years) as the last meeting held by the German Communist Party leadership before the participants were arrested and killed, or in some cases managed to escape abroad.

The focus of Selbmann's (by definition illegal) political work switched to Leipzig which is where, on 11 April 1933, he was arrested. would grow up with family friends. Selbmann, meanwhile, was held in investigatory custody in Leipzig and Berlin for approximately two and a half years, During what turned out to be the final weeks of the war the Flossenbürg camp was closed down and Selbmann was transferred again, this time to Dachau in the suburbs north of Munich. At the end of April 1945, as the authorities raced to clear the concentration camps of their inmates ahead of the arrival of the invading armies, he was sent out on one of the infamous death marches. He managed to escape and made his way back to Leipzig. However, the protestors were already too worked up for this approach to succeed: even his announcement that the government had withdrawn the previous month's 10% increase in "standard production quantities", one of the issues that had triggered the protests - failed to quell the mood. The increasingly violent protests that broke out the next day on the streets of East Berlin, and in other industrial centers, threatened to get out of control. A month later, thanks to the fraternal intervention of Soviet tanks and troops, control had been restored.

Between 1958 and 1961 Selbmann was employed as a deputy chairman in the , a large and amorphous government agency. The nature of his duties is unclear but those sources that mention this part of his career indicate that the job was an inconsequential one. He was also made head of the Department for Recording and Allocating the Means of Production. He served between 1961 and 1964 as one of the deputy chairmen of the People's Economic Council ("Volkswirtschaftsrat" / VWR), which was dissolved and replaced as part of a reorganisation that took place in 1965. This included some trenchant, hitherto little publicized, insights into the events of June 1953. He lived and worked, during his final years, in the Berlin quarter of Müggelheim, and after he died, in 1977 the Junior School there was renamed in his honour. (It was renamed again after reunification.) Other educational institutions and public structures were named in his honour including the vast .

State honours received during his lifetime included the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver (1955), in gold (1964) and the Patriotic Order of Merit (gold clasp) (1965). He was also a recipient, in 1960, of the Banner of Labor and in 1969 of the Order of Karl Marx and, in recognition of his contribution to literature, of the National Prize of the German Democratic Republic, Class II.

Publications (selection)

1961: Die lange Nacht 1962: Die Heimkehr des Joachim Ott, Novel, Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle/Saale 1965: Die Söhne der Wölfe 1969: Alternative, Bilanz, Credo, Autobiography 1973: Der Mitläufer 1999 (posthumously): Acht Jahre und ein Tag. Bilder aus den Gründerjahren der DDR, Autobiography 1945–53