Alois Bräutigam (28 April 1916 – 10 January 2007) was a German-Czech miner, policeman, politician and party functionary of the Socialist Unity Party (SED).
He moved to the Soviet occupation zone after the war, where he became a SED functionary. He served as the longtime First Secretary of the Bezirk Erfurt SED before being forced into retirement in 1980.
Czechoslovakia
Bräutigam, the son of a miner, was born on 28 April 1916 in Grünlas, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary (today Loučky, part of Nové Sedlo, Czech Republic). He completed an apprenticeship as a bricklayer from 1929 to 1932 after attending elementary school in Nové Sedlo. He then worked both in this profession and as a miner.[1]
In 1929, he joined the Communist Youth Association, in 1932 became a member of the Combat Community for Red Sports Unit, and in 1934, he joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia as well as the Union of Friends of the Soviet Union.[1][2]
From 1937 to 1938, he served in the Czechoslovak Army. After a brief period of unemployment, he served in the Wehrmacht from January to April 1939. At the start of World War II in September 1939, he was drafted back into the Wehrmacht and served in an artillery regiment.[1]
He participated in the French Campaign in May/June 1940. After falling ill, he was discharged from the front in February 1942 and held the rank of Obergefreiter.[1]
Until 1945, he worked again as a miner in a clay pit and participated in illegal political work against the Nazi regime as a member of the local resistance movement in Neusattl in 1944/45.[1][2]
In 1946, he moved to Schmalkalden in the Soviet occupation zone. In February 1946, he joined the KPD (Communist Party of Germany), and after the forced merger of the KPD and SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) in April 1946, he became a member of the SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany).[1]
From July 1946 to January 1947, he was a Volkspolizei policeman (sergeant) at the Schmalkalden district police office and from 1946 to 1949, a city councilor in Schmalkalden.[1][2]
In 1947, he became a full-time SED employee, initially as a political staff member and chairman of the SED in Schmalkalden.[1][2] From 1947 to 1952, he was a member of the SED state leadership in Thuringia.[1]
From July 1949 to November 1950, he was the First Secretary of the Arnstadt district SED, and from November 1950 to 1951, First Secretary of the Weimar district SED.[1][2]
In 1951/52, he studied at the "Karl Marx" Party Academy.[2] Subsequently, from January to May 1953, he was head of the State Organs Department of the Bezirk Erfurt SED. From June 1953 to 1954, he was First Secretary of the SED in Erfurt[1][2] and a city councilor there.[1]
The SDAG Wismut SED party organization, titled territorial party leadership (German: Gebietsparteileitung), held the rank of a Bezirk party organization,[4][5][6] unlike all other industrial party organizations, as SDAG Wismut was a massive mining undertaking with dozens of locations.[4] It was described as a "state within a state".[5][6]
He additionally became a full member of the Central Committee of the SED in June (V. Party Congress), serving until its collective resignation in December 1989, and of the Volkskammerin December,[1] nominally representing a constituency in the southwest of his Bezirk.[11]
Bräutigam was allowed to remain in the Central Committee, but retired from the Volkskammer in 1981 and was transferred to a politically irrelevant position at the People's Solidarity, a SED-controlled mass organization providing welfare for elderly people. Bräutigam initially joined the People's Solidarity's Central Board as deputy chairman in 1981, but became chairman in June 1982 upon the retirement of Robert Lehmann. He resigned on 11 December 1989.[1]
After the Peaceful Revolution, Bräutigam withdrew from public life. He died in early 2007 and was buried in the main cemetery in Erfurt.[1]
