Karl Maron
East German politician (1903–1975)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Karl Maron (1903–1975) was a German politician, who served as the interior minister of East Germany. He also assumed different posts in East Germany's government.
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Karl Maron | |
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| Minister of the Interior of the German Democratic Republic | |
| In office 1 July 1955 – 14 November 1963 | |
| Preceded by | Willi Stoph |
| Succeeded by | Friedrich Dickel |
| Member of the Volkskammer | |
| In office 1958–1967 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 27 April 1903 |
| Died | 2 February 1975 (aged 71) |
| Resting place | Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde, Berlin |
| Party |
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Early life and education
Career
Maron was a metal worker.[3] In 1926, he joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD).[3] During the Nazi regime, he left Germany in 1934 for Denmark and then settled in Russia.[1][3] He returned to Berlin under the protection of a Russian general a few days after the Red Army captured the city in 1945.[1] Following his return he became deputy lord mayor of Berlin and the chief of police.[4][5] As a deputy mayor one of his significant tasks was to rename the streets of Berlin.[5] In 1946, he joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED).[3][6] From 1946 to 1950 he was the chief editor of daily Neues Deutschland, which was founded in 1946 by the SED.[3] He was also the director of Berlin municipality's economy department at the end of the 1940s.[7]
He became the chief of the German people’s police or more commonly Volkspolizei in June 1950 when former chief Kurt Fischer died.[8] In February 1953, he publicly argued "the Volkspolizei can never be neutral or unpolitical."[8] In 1954, he was named as the member of SED's central committee.[3] During his tenure as the chief of Volkspolizei he also assumed the role of deputy interior minister.[9]
Maron was appointed interior minister on 1 July 1955, replacing Willi Stoph in the post.[10] In this position he was promoted in 1962 to Generaloberst. In 1961, he became a member of the working group formed by the Politburo to develop ways to end refugee flow from East Germany.[11] The other members of the group were then security chief Erich Honecker and Stasi chief Erich Mielke.[11] Maron's tenure as interior minister ended on 14 November 1963.[12] He was succeeded by Friedrich Dickel as interior minister.[13] From 1958 to 1967 he served as the representative of Volkskammer.[3] In 1964, Maron founded the Institute for Demoscopy (Institut für Meinungsforschung in German) that was a demoscopic research body sponsored by the SED.[14]
Personal life and death
Legacy
A street in East Berlin was named after him, Karl-Maron-Straße, in the 1970s and 1980s.[18]
