Günter Heyden

Günter Heyden (16 February 1921 – 21 January 2002) was a German professor of philosophy and a sociologist. Between 1969 and 1989 he was the director of the East Berlin-based Institute for Marxism–Leninism.

Biography Günter Heyden was born in Stargard, a small industrial town and railway junction a short distance to the east of Stettin. His father was a qualified oven engineer. After leaving school he trained for and entered his father's profession. In 1941 he was conscripted for military service. In March 1945 he was captured by the Americans and then transferred to the Soviets, spending the nearly five years, till December 1949, as a prisoner of war. During his final six months of detention, between July and December 1949, he benefitted from a period of political education at a Soviet Antifascist Academy. Between 1952 and 1956 he studied at the Party Central Committee's prestigious Institute for Social Sciences ( / IfG) - as it was known at that time - emerging with a doctorate. till 1989. He also led the editorial commission for the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA) on the German side.

Between 1956 and 1987 he was a member of the editorial college of the "German Philosophy Journal" , and from 1976 till 1989 he was in addition a member of the editorial college of the SED newspaper, "Einheit" ("Unity"). Between 1981 and 1989 he was also a member of the national audit commission .

Heyden died in Berlin on 21 January 2002 at the age of 80.

Awards and honours

1968 Patriotic Order of Merit in silver 1981 National Prize of the German Democratic Republic 1981 Patriotic Order of Merit in gold 1986 Order of Karl Marx