Horst Schumann

Horst Schumann (6 February 1924 – 28 December 1993) was a German politician and functionary of the Free German Youth (FDJ) and the Socialist Unity Party (SED).

In the German Democratic Republic, he served as the longtime First Secretary of the FDJ from 1959 to 1967 and of the SED in Bezirk Leipzig from 1970 to 1989.

Life and career Schumann's father, Georg Schumann, was a toolmaker, KPD (Communist Party of Germany) functionary, and resistance fighter against National Socialism. In 1933, his father was taken into protective custody by the Gestapo. Even before his father's release, Schumann joined the Hitler Youth in the spring of 1939, allegedly against his will and on the recommendation of Kurt Kresse, a friend of his father, who saw it as an opportunity to disguise the family.

Horst Schumann attended elementary school and learned the trade of piano making from 1938 to 1941. In 1943, he was conscripted into the Wehrmacht and served as an infantry and anti-tank soldier and grenadier. In the last months of the war, Schumann's father was executed for his activities in the resistance. After the war, Schumann was briefly interned in American and Soviet prisoner-of-war camps and, upon his release in July 1945, sought employment in Leipzig.

FDJ First Secretary

In May 1959, Schumann rose to the position of the First Secretary of the Central Council of the FDJ, succeeding Karl Namokel, in 1960, though he left it at the start of the Honecker era in 1971. He was not involved in the decisions regarding the Leipzig Monday Demonstrations on 9 October 1989, as he was on sick leave. His deputy, Second Secretary Helmut Hackenberg, represented him.

On 20 October 1989, the Politburo, now under Egon Krenz, decided to replace Schumann with Bezirk Leipzig SED Science and Education Secretary Roland Wötzel, who was seen as reform-oriented and had participated in the call for non-violence during the large demonstration on 9 October 1989, in Leipzig, known as the "Leipzig Six."

Reunified Germany

Following the political changes, on 5 May 1990, he was charged by the Leipzig District Attorney's Office with incitement to electoral fraud in the municipal elections in May 1989, but his death preempted any potential conviction.

Schumann died in 1993 at the age of 80 in Berlin.

His grave is located in the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery in the gravesite for victims of fascism and persecuted by the Nazi regime.