Hermann Weber

Hermann Weber (23 August 1928 – 29 December 2014) was a German historian and political scientist. He has been described as "the man who knew everything about the German Democratic Republic".

Life

Early years Hermann Weber was born into a working-class family in the closing years of what would later become known as the Weimar Republic period. His father was a metal worker. Published output (not a complete list)

As author with Andreas Herbst: Deutsche Kommunisten. Biographisches Handbuch 1918–1945. 2nd edition: revised and much extended, Berlin 2008. Deutsche Kommunisten – Supplement to the above 1918-1945. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 2013. with Gerda Weber: Leben nach dem „Prinzip links“. Erinnerungen aus fünf Jahrzehnten. Links, Berlin 2006. Damals als ich Wunderlich hieß. Vom Parteihochschüler zum kritischen Sozialisten. Die SED-Parteihochschule „Karl Marx“ bis 1949. Aufbau, Berlin 2002. Erich Walter Gniffke. In: Karl Wilhelm Fricke, Peter Steinbach, Johannes Tuchel (Ed.): Opposition und Widerstand in der DDR – Politische Lebensbilder. Beck, 2002, , S. 203–209. Die DDR 1945–1990. (Grundriss der Geschichte, Bd. 20). 5th (updated) edition. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, München 2012. Geschichte der DDR. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, München 1985. with Gerda Weber: Lenin-Chronik, Daten zu Leben und Werk. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, München 1974. Aufbau und Fall einer Diktatur. Kritische Beiträge zur Geschichte der DDR. Bund, Frankfurt am Main 1991. Die Wandlung des deutschen Kommunismus. Die Stalinisierung der KPD in der Weimarer Republik. 2 vols. Europäische Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt am Main 1969. Ulbricht fälscht Geschichte. Ein Kommentar mit Dokumenten zum „Grundriß der Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung“. Neuer Deutscher Verlag, Köln 1964.

As editor Hermann Weber and others (Ed.): Kommunisten verfolgen Kommunisten: stalinistischer Terror und „Säuberungen“ in den kommunistischen Parteien Europas seit den dreißiger Jahren. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1993. Der Gründungsparteitag der KPD. Europäische Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt am Main 1969. Neu herausgegeben und eingeleitet: Die Gründung der KPD, Protokoll und Materialien des Gründungsparteitages der KPD 1918/1919. Mit einer Einführung zur angeblichen Erstveröffentlichung durch die SED. Dietz, Berlin 1993.

Young communist Weber joined the KPD himself in 1945. Early in 1946 he attended a four-week course near Berlin organised by the Free German Youth (FDJ / Freie Deutsche Jugend) which was in effect the newly created youth wing of the German Communist Party, legalized again following the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War. In June of that year he was a delegate to the FDJ's first parliament, where he met its president, Erich Honecker, future head of state of the German Democratic Republic (GDR/East Germany). It was as a student at the "Karl Marx" Academy that he met his future wife, Gerda Röder.

Back in the Federal Republic In 1949 Weber was sent back to what had now become the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), formally established in May 1949 from a combination of the three Allied occupation zones hitherto under US, British and French control. He became editor-in-chief of the FDJ-Zeitung, a newspaper based at this stage in Frankfurt aimed at young West Germans. – Stalin's message had appeared on the front page, but only in a small box. In 1955 he joined West Germany's "moderate left" SPD (party), Habilitation followed in 1970 and an "extraordinary professorship" in 1973. He was also an honorary member of the Joint Commission for research on recent German Russian relations.

In 1993 he founded the Year Book for Historical Communism Research, an annual publication which he continued to edit till 2007.

Professional high point Weber identified a high point of his research career as the discovery, in 1968, of the text of the original minutes of the Founding Congress of the German Communist Party. The record had been undiscovered for fifty years. Subsequently, East Germany's ruling SED (party) asserted that they had found it, and they showed little urgency in making it available. However, in 1972 the party's Institute for Marxism–Leninism published an edition which was unambiguously based on Weber's version.