Georg Ewald

Georg Ewald (30 October 1926 – 14 September 1973) was an East German politician and high-ranking party functionary of the Socialist Unity Party (SED).

Ewald briefly served as the First Secretary of the SED in Bezirk Neubrandenburg and, most notably, as the longtime Agriculture Minister of East Germany and as a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED. He died in a car accident in 1973.

Life and career Early career Georg Ewald was born on 30 October 1926 in Buchholz (now a part of Gremersdorf-Buchholz) in the Prussian Province of Pomerania. He attended agricultural school and then worked at his parents' farm until being drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1943. After the war, he was a farmworker. Ewald, who had joined the Free German Youth (FDJ) and the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) in 1946, was made the mayor of his hometown in 1949. After only a year, he was promoted to the local government of the district of Stralsund with responsibility for agriculture. Steffen was demoted to party secretary in the Lübbenau coal power plant, having been reprimanded.

In January 1963 (VI. Party Congress), he was made a full member of the SED Central Committee and a candidate member of its Politburo, the de facto highest leadership body in East Germany.

Agriculture Minister In February 1963, the GDR's Ministry of Agriculture was abolished and replaced by the Agricultural Council, later renamed Council for Agricultural Production and Food Economy, its chairman retaining minister rank. Karl-Heinz Bartsch, appointed on 7 February, was forced to resign only two days later, on 9 February, after West German media revealed that he had concealed his membership in the Waffen-SS.

Ewald replaced him, additionally becoming a member of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers and a member of the Volkskammer later that year, nominally representing a constituency in northeastern Bezirk Rostock. Ewald remained minister when the Ministry was reestablished as Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry and Food.

Death

Ewald died in a car accident on the morning of 14 September 1973, near Gotha. Two other SED functionaries, members of the Bezirk Erfurt SED leadership, also died in the accident.

Immediately afterwards, the Stasi confiscated documents relating to his activities as candidate member of the Politburo of the SED Central Committee and his ministerial office from the work rooms.

He was given a state funeral and was interred at the Memorial of the Socialists of the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery in Berlin-Lichtenberg.

In Gotha's local vernacular, the stretch of road where Ewald died, a long curve of the B 247 between the A4 motorway exit and the entrance to Gotha, is still known today as Minister's Curve .