Georg Henke

Georg Erich Henke (9 April 1908 – 8 December 1986) was a German Communist who involved himself in political resistance during the Nazi years, and spent most of the Second World War exiled in Sweden. He also worked as a journalist. After the war he became an East German diplomat, ending up, between 1968 and 1972, as his country's ambassador to North Korea.

Life

Early years Georg Henke was born in Charlottenburg, Berlin into a working-class family. His stepfather owned an antiques business. He then remained in Moscow till 1955 as head of the East German mission to the Comecon (Rat für gegenseitige Wirtschaftshilfe / Совет Экономической Взаимопомощи).

In fiction Georg Henke featured as a minor character in the first part of a three-volume novel "The aesthetics of Resistance" ("Die Ästhetik des Widerstands") by the German-born writer Peter Weiss. Weiss interviewed Henke on 20 October 1972 and used the results of their talk in the book's second and third volume.