Georg Dertinger
Georg Dertinger (
25 December 1902 -
21 January 1968) was a
German politician from the
German Democratic Republic (East Germany).
He was born in
Berlin into a middle-class protestant family. Dertinger briefly studied law and economics. After his study he became a journalist and later editor for the
Magdeburger Volkszeitung and the nationalistic newspaper
Stahlhelm. He broke with the Stahlhelm because of its rigid right-wing philosophy. He sympathized with the
German National People's Party, a right-wing nationalist party that later shortly collaborated with
Adolf Hitler.
Dertinger later became a member of the political circle around Chancellor
Franz von Papen.
He accompanied Papen to Rome as a journalist, a representative for the Hamburger Nachrichten, for the signature of the
Concordat between
Nazi-
Germany and the
Vatican, shortly after Hitler became Chancellor.
In 1934 Dertinger returned to Berlin and became publisher of Dienst aus Deutschland, a news agency that provided news to foreign newspapers.
After
World War II Dertinger co-founded the
Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) in the
SBZ (Soviet Occupied Zone) of
Germany. From
1946 to
1949 he was General Secretary of the East-German CDU and from
1949 to
1953 Vice-Chairman of the party. He supported the official line of co-operation with the
Socialist Unity Party (Communists). Detker was opposed to independent minded party chairman
Jakob Kaiser and had him deposed in December,
1947.
Dertinger also joined the
Cultural Association of the DDR (Kulturbund) and was a member of the Cultural Association's Presidential Council.
On
October 11,
1949 he became
East Germany's first Minister of Foreign Affairs in
Otto Grotewohl's cabinet [
1] and in
1950 he signed the
Oder-Neisse Treaty with
Poland, that arranged the borderline between East Germany and the Polish Republic.
On
January 15,
1953 [
2] Dertinger was arrested and in
1954 he was tried on a
show trial for espionage, found guilty and sentenced to hard labor (15 years). In
1964 he was given
amnesty. The years before his death he worked for the
Roman Catholic St. Benno publishing house.
*
East Germany*
Anton Ackermann*
An article on Dertringer (in German)
