Lothar Mosler

Lothar Mosler (2 March 1913 – 28 November 1995) was a mainstream East German historian who arrived at his university career through the political route. Between 1953 and 1961 he served as director of the Franz Mehring Institute for training teachers in Marxist-Leninist Sociological Studies, which was a core (and for much of the time compulsory) base module for students at the Karl Marx University (as it was known between 1953 and 1991) of Leipzig. Between 1958 and his retirement in 1978 Prof. Mosler taught the History of the German Labour Movement at the university.

Life Provenance and early years Lothar Gerhard Mosler was born in Ziegenhals (known, after 1944/45, as Głuchołazy), which was a small mining town on the southern frontier region of Upper Silesia. Max Mosler, his father, was a master carpenter and, later, a war pensioner. His mother, Sophie, was at one stage employed as a cook. He attended school in Ziegenhals between 1920 and 1928, moving on to the secondary school in Breslau (subsequently, since 1944/45, identified as Wrocław), successfully completing his schooling by passing his Abitur in 1933. His interest in politics was evidenced by his membership of the "Sozialistischer Schülerbund" between 1928 and 1930 and his role as a local leader with the Breslau Young Communists between 1930 and 1933. In 1951 he completed a three month teacher training course at Eberswalde for university teaching for the important Marxist-Leninist Sociological Studies curriculum. That opened the way for a transfer to the Karl Marx University at Leipzig which was one of the top universities in East Germany, with a particular focus on critical political subjects such as Journalism and History.

Leipzig years In 1951 Mosler accepted a lectureship in Marxist-Leninist Sociological Studies at the university's Institute for Journalism and Newspaper Studies. This was accompanied by a parallel appointment as a member of the party leadership group at the university's wide-ranging Philosophy Faculty. In 1953 he became director and a lecturer on the History of the German Labour Movement at the university's Franz Mehring Institute. On 22 March 1958 he received his doctorate in return for a dissertation on "The Strike of the Port Workers and Seamen in Hamburg-Altona 1896/97". The work was produced under the supervision of Professors Ernst Engelberg and Walter Markov.

Following receipt of his doctorate Mosler accepted a professorship, still at the Karl Marx University of Leipzig, with the focus of his teaching still on the History of the Labour Movement. Between 1959 and 1964 he served as Prorector for Marxist-Leninist Sociological Studies and First Deputy University Rector. In 1961 he resigned from his role as director of the university's Franz Mehring Institute, and in the same year became a member of the Senate Commission on Social Sciences. In 1966 he accepted a teaching professorship in the History of the German Labour Movement at the national Marxism-Leninism Institute. In 1969 he undertook a five month leave of absence in order to undertake a piece of study at the University of Kiev on the History of the Soviet Communist Party.

Mosler's teaching work continued to be complemented by various administrative and political positions and responsibilities. Between 1959 and 1968 he was a member of the party leadership team ("SED-Kreisleitung") at the Karl Marx University. He also served, between 1958 and 1970, as a member of the Leipzig District Council ("Abgeordneter des Bezirkstages Leipzig"): he also chaired the council's Commission on Popular Education ("... Kommission Volksbildung"). On a national level, between 1971 and 1978 he belonged to the Commission for the Theology Section at the Ministry for Higher Education and Vocational Training ("Ministerium für das Hoch- und Fachschulwesen..."). In addition, from 1965 he was a member of the "Kulturbund", a state-backed all-embracing umbrella organisation to which a large number of East German arts and culture-related organisations in need of approval were affiliated. The "Kulturbund" was a mass organisation which under the centralised Leninist power structure in force, and subject to the relentless control of the ruling SED (party), enjoyed some of the characteristics and privileges of a political party. It was as a representative delegate from the "Kulturbund" that Lothar Mosler held both his membership of the Leipzig District Council and, from as far back as 1959, his membership of the prestigious "Urania" East German Society for the Dissemination of Academic Knowledge.

Lothar Mosler retired from his professorship on 1 September 1978.

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