Hugo Gräf

Hugo Gräf (10 October 1892 – 23 October 1958) was a German Communist politician.

Life

Early years Hugo Gräf was born in a small village some 20 km (12 miles) south of Erfurt in the southern part of what was then central Germany. His father was employed in the building trade: his mother worked in domestic service and agriculture. Gräf worked as a farm labourer from 1902, later undertaking a training as a pipefitter which enabled him to become an itinerant labourer. He became a member of the German Metal Workers' Union in 1907 and joined the Social Democratic Party on 1 May 1910.

Military life and politics He was called up for military service in 1912 which would normally have lasted for two years, but the outbreak of war in August 1914 saw him conscripted into the war-time army. In 1916 he was badly wounded and sent home without his left leg. In 1916/17 he was conscripted to work in a gun factory in Erfurt. He continued to sit in the Reichstag, winning his seat again in the election of 5 March 1933, but the Nazi government immediately (and under existing legislation still illegally) cancelled the election results in respect of seats won by the Communist candidates.

Arrest, imprisonment and exile Legislation was passed less than three weeks after the March election which had the effect of establishing one-party government in Germany.

In 1935, Gräf studied in Moscow,

The German Democratic Republic After the war ended in May 1945 Gräf returned home in August 1946. Home was now in the Soviet occupation zone of what remained of Germany. During the next few years, under Soviet Military Administration, the region would become the Soviet sponsored German Democratic Republic, formally founded in October 1949, but in reality the creation of the new state was an iterative process. Already in April 1946, the merging of the old Communist Party (KPD) and more moderately left wing SPD into the new SED created the basis for a return to one-party government. Hugo Gräf arrived back as a long-standing member of the Communist Party, now no longer illegal in Germany, and like thousands of others, lost no time in signing over his membership to the new Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED / Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands). In 1946 he became a spokesman/consultant of the Health Policy Department of the Central Secretariat with the interim administration, having become a department head by 1948. He was one of the founders of the Health Service of the Trade Union Federation (FDGB / Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund), and on 5 July 1949 he was appointed its first president, serving in this position till 1951.

He joined the executive of the FDGB in 1950. In Thuringia he was a senior regional administrator (Landrat), based in Gotha between 1951 and 1953. However, he resigned on health grounds in May 1953 following a clash with the local party leadership over proposals for a redevelopment of the municipal theatre in Gotha which had been rendered unusable by allied bombing some years earlier. He nevertheless returned to political engagement locally, serving as a member of the Party Regional Leadership in Gotha from 1955 till 1958.