Karl Mewis

Karl Mewis (22 November 1907 – 16 June 1987) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism, diplomat, politician and high-ranking party functionary of the Socialist Unity Party (SED).

In the German Democratic Republic, he served as the longtime First Secretary of the SED in Mecklenburg, later Bezirk Rostock and was a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED. Mewis also briefly served as Chairman of the State Planning Commission before having to step down due to the supply crisis in the GDR.

Life and career Weimar Republic Mewis completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith at the Deutsche Reichsbahn. He joined the Socialist Workers' Youth in 1922, the Communist Youth League of Germany in 1923, and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1924. From 1925 to 1928, he was the chairman of the Hessen-Waldeck branch of the Communist Youth League, and from 1929 to 1932, he was the organizational secretary of the KPD District Directorate in Magdeburg-Anhalt.

Nazi Germany From 1932 to 1934, Mewis attended the International Lenin School in Moscow, after which he worked illegally for the KPD as the Political Leader of the Wasserkante Party District (consisting of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein) until 1936. He worked closely with Richard Stahlmann during this time. who was elected the Minister-President of Mecklenburg in July 1951. After Mecklenburg was dissolved in 1953, Mewis became the First Secretary of the SED in Bezirk Rostock, by far the most populous of the three Bezirke created from Mecklenburg.

As the First Secretary of the SED in Mecklenburg, later Bezirk Rostock, he enforced the collectivization of agriculture from 1950 to 1961. Mewis frequently clashed with other socialist countries in regards to fishing.

From 1950 to 1952, he was a candidate member and from 1952 to 1981 (X. Party Congress), he was a full member of the Central Committee of the SED.

Personal life

Family He married Auguste Reichert in Kassel in 1927 (divorced in 1934). In 1939, he married Luise (known as Liesel), the daughter of the communist politician Franz Dahlem, who lived with him in Stockholm (*1919, divorced in 1953, died in 1957). When his mentor Franz Dahlem was deposed under the pretext of having relationships with Noel Field, who was denounced as an American spy, Mewis did not participate in the campaign against him, but he also did not defend him. He later separated from his daughter, who was fatally ill with cancer. Both marriages produced children, including Liesel Catherine (*1941, married Haacke, Africanist with a doctorate), Franz (longtime opera singer in Rostock), and Annette (Ph.D. in media studies).

Death Mewis died on 16 June 1987. His urn is buried in the Memorial of the Socialists at the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery in Berlin-Lichtenberg.