Georg Ulrich Handke

Georg Ulrich Handke (22 April 1894 – 7 September 1962) was a German politician (Communist Party of Germany/Socialist Unity Party of Germany).

In 1958 he became one of the 111 members of the Party Central Committee in the German Democratic Republic. He had previously served as an ambassador and as government minister. that emerged in Hanau as part of the wider revolutionary turmoil that spread across Germany directly after the war.

During the early 1920s there was a further fragmentation of left wing parties in Germany, and following disagreements, apparently regarding tactics, in the wake of the March Action protests of 1921 Handke was among the Communist party members who broke away, following Paul Levi, to form the Communist Working Group. Handke rejoined the Communist party of Germany two years later (unlike Levi). Despite the party having been outlawed Handke continued to work for it during 1933/34. On 2 July 1935, he appeared before the Berlin People's Court, charged with conspiracy to commit high treason. The court convicted Handke and sentenced him to fifteen years imprisonment: seven were to be spent in solitary confinement. Recalling his work with the co-operative movement back in the 1920s in the Frankfurt region, he served between 1949 and 1952 as president of the Co-Op chain. He headed a trade delegation to Moscow in 1951/52, and further overseas experience came with his appointment, in October 1952, as his country's ambassador in Bucharest: a year later he was back working in Berlin where he became first deputy to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and at the same time a member of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Party Central Committee. Handke served on the Central Audit committee (Zentrale Revisionskommission) of the Party Central Committee between 1954 and 1958 and during this time was himself a candidate for Central Committee membership. In 1958 he became one of the Central Committee's 111 members. in succession to (the younger) Friedrich Ebert.

Death and burial Handke died in Berlin on 7 September 1962. His ashes were placed with those of other senior East German politicians in the "Socialists' Memorial" area ("Gedenkstätte der Sozialisten") at Berlin's Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery.

Awards and honours 1954 Patriotic Order of Merit in silver 1959 Order of Karl Marx 1960 Banner of Labor

In 1974 the national postal service issued a special postage stamp to celebrate what would have been Handke's 80th birthday.