Herbert Kroker

Herbert Kroker (24 August 1929 – 14 April 2022) was an East German combine director, politician and party functionary of the Socialist Unity Party (SED).

Originally a trade union functionary, Kroker later served as director of several state-owned enterprises, culminating in his 1970 appointment to lead the large industrial combine VEB Kombinat Umformtechnik "Herbert Warnke" Erfurt. He was replaced and demoted in 1983 due to disagreements with the SED's leadership.

During the Peaceful Revolution, he rose to become the last first secretary of the Bezirk Erfurt SED and, briefly in December 1989, led the SED itself during its restructuring.

Life and career Early career Herbert Kroker was born on 24 August 1929 in Groß Merzdorf, Province of Lower Silesia, Prussia, Weimar Republic (now Gmina Marcinowice, Poland). Kroker, the son of a working-class family, began an apprenticeship in commercial work after completing primary school. In 1945, he was drafted into the Volkssturm and became a Soviet prisoner of war, where he remained for four months.

After World War II, he initially worked as a farm laborer on a Polish state estate and then completed an apprenticeship as a metalworker from 1946 to 1949. Until 1953, he worked in this profession at the "G. Kohl" factory in Chemnitz and as an assembler at VEB Lufttechnische Anlagen Berlin. In 1953, he joined the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB) and, in 1954, the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). The combine bundled 25 plants in 19 companies in 16 cities together, the main factory in Erfurt alone having 5.500 employees.

Dismissal Kroker eventually found himself at odds with the SED's leadership. Ahead of Erich Honecker's May 1981 Japan state visit, Kroker objected to the decision of SED Central Committee secretary for economics Günter Mittag to import 10,000 Mazda cars as a gesture of goodwill, arguing that it would be better to import another 10,000 VW Golf instead. He argued that there was a very beneficial collaboration with the Volkswagen Group in many areas, which could be further developed.

After the collective resignation of the Politburo and the Central Committee on 3 December 1989, he also led the temporary working committee of the SED until the party congress on December 6, making him the de jure leader of the SED for several days. in this role, he prepared the party's transition into democracy, but he also faced criticism that he lacked democratic legitimacy.

Kroker remained a member of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the SED's successor.