Lothar Berthold

Lothar Berthold (30 August 1926 – 12 September 2007) was an East German Marxist-Leninist historian, university teacher and publisher. He was also an official of the country's ruling Socialist Unity Party ("Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands" / SED). During the 1960s he was a member of the politburo's "Ideology Commission", widely regarded as one of the most committed and effective propagandists among East Germany's mainstream academic historians. His publications and political engagement after reunification reflected a continuing commitment to East German-style communism.

Life Berthold was born in Hindenburg (as Zabrze had been renamed) after 1914). Hindenburg was a substantial manufacturing city in Upper Silesia: the 1921 plebiscite had identified it as a predominantly German-speaking city, albeit by a narrow margin. Lothar Berthold's father worked as a customs official. After completing his school final exams (Abitur) at a relatively young age, in 1943/44 he became a Luftwaffenhelfer (loosely: "air defence assistant"). In 1944 he was enrolled into the Reich Labour Service. Before the end of the year he had been conscripted into the army. He was briefly a member of the Nazi Party. ) on Communist Party history. In 1960 he passed his habilitation (higher academic qualification) which opened the way to a lifelong academic career. The same year he was appointed to a professorship at the academy. Along with this position, which Berthold held for the next four years, he was appointed a member of the politburo's influential "Ideology Commission". Along with his responsibilities at the institute, between 1962 and 1968 Berthold was editor in chief of "Beiträge zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung", an academic journal focusing on the history of the labour movement, a topic of considerable importance for the national leadership.

In 1967 the eldest of the Bertholds' three daughters, Erika-Dorothea, became friendly with Florian Havemann, whose father, Robert Havemann was one of the country's most high-profile (and intellectually brilliant) political dissidents. The crushing of the Prague Spring movement in August 1968 through an invasion by fraternal tanks from around the Warsaw Pact caused unease at many levels in East Germany, but most people kept their doubts to themselves. Nevertheless, a number of young people, including some of the adolescent children of East German intellectuals, such as Thomas Brasch, Florian Havemann and his girl-friend, Erika-Dorothea Berthold, expressed their opposition to the Warsaw Pact intervention through a series of street protests in Berlin. They also painted the name "Dubcek" on walls and distributed leaflets spelling out their concerns. After slightly less than three months in investigatory custody, the young people faced trial between 21 and 28 October 1968 and were condemned to prison terms or, in the case of Florian Havemann who was only 16, "educational measures". Erika-Dorothea Berthold was nonetheless prevented from completing her schooling. She was already living with her boy-friend in a commune and was now, despite her stellar academic pedigree, required to train for work as a librarian.

Lothar Berthold won the Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze in 1963 and then, after just two years, in silver. Comrades attributed great political value to the biography, seen as a reason why Berthold won the National Prize of the German Democratic Republic not once but twice. He was also active for many years as a "Friend of the Ernst Thälmann Memorial Centre" (im "Freundeskreis der Ernst-Thälmann-Gedenkstätte") and a regular speaker at events held in the where Thälmann held before the Nazis closed down political pluralism back in 1933. 1976 Banner of Labor 2nd class 1986 Star of People's Friendship in Silver