Albert Norden

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Albert Norden
Myslowitz, Province of Silesia, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
Died30 May 1982(1982-05-30) (aged 77)
East Berlin, East Germany
Occupation(s)Journalist, politician
Political partySocialist Unity
Spouse
Herta Norden (née Fischer)
​
​
(m. 1940)​
Parents

Albert Norden (4 December 1904 – 30 May 1982

communist
politician.

Early years

Albert Norden was born in

Myslowitz, Silesia on 4 December 1904, one of the five recorded children born to the liberal rabbi Joseph Norden [de][2] (1870–1943) and his wife, Emilie Meseritz/Norden (1876–1931).[3]

In 1919, he joined the

Rote Fahne ('Red Flag').[4][5]

In exile

In 1933 Norden emigrated to

Theresienstadt concentration camp.[3][6]

In exile in Paris and New York he worked with various popular front publications. He wrote some chapters, dealing with the international linkages of the German NSDAP, in the widely read 1933 Braunbuch über Reichstagsbrand und Hitlerterror ('Brown Book on Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror').[7] In 1940, he married Herta Fischer (1908–1990), and their son, Johnny, was born in October 1942.[3] In October 1946 he returned to Berlin, where he became editor of the weekly Deutschlands Stimme ('Voice of Germany').[4]

Political career in East Germany

Norden at the 6th SED Party Congress with Hermann Axen (1963)

In 1949, he was assigned as head of the Press Section of the Information Department of Ministerial Council of the German Democratic Republic, working under

Humboldt University.[5][8]

In 1954, he became director of the National Council of the

Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). He was elected as one of the secretaries of the Central Committee. In 1958 he became a member of the Politburo of the party.[5]

Norden served as head of the Agitation Committee of the Politburo, 1955–67. He was in-charge of the Information & Foreign Department of the Politburo until 1979. In 1958, he became a member of the Volkskammer (People's Chamber, the parliament of the GDR). In 1960 he became the head of the 'West Commission'.[5] In June 1965 Norden suggested that regional elections in the German Democratic Republic should be open for alternate candidates.[9]

In 1963, Norden became a member of the National Defense Council, a post he held until 1979. In 1976 he became a member of the State Council. In April 1981, the then ailing Norden was left out of the Central Committee and Politburo at the 10th SED party congress. In the same year he left the Volkskammer and State Council positions.[5][10]

Brown Book

Braunbuch

After the war Norden argued in several publications, articles and speeches that there was a direct continuation between the Hitler and

historiography on the Nazi period.[11]

Religious identity

Norden was born into a

petty bourgeois family, the son of a rabbi.[2] As an adult, Norden declined to identify himself as a Jew. He was however, one of the most prominent persons of Jewish origin in East German society.[12]

References

  1. ^ Heike Amos (1999), "Norden, Albert (Pseudonym Hans Behrend)", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 19, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 340–341; (full text online)
  2. ^ a b Timm, Angelika. Jewish Claims against East Germany: Moral Obligations and Pragmatic Policy. Budapest: Central European University Press, 1997. p. 61
  3. ^ a b c Bernd-Rainer Barth, Helmut Müller-Enbergs. "Norden, Albert (Ps. Hans Behrend) * 4.12.1904, † 30.5.1982 Mitglied des Politbüros des ZK der SED". Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur: Biographische Datenbanken. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
  4. ^ a b c Amos, Heike. Politik und Organisation der SED-Zentrale 1949–1963: Struktur und Arbeitsweise von Politbüro, Sekretariat, Zentralkomitee und ZK-Apparat. Diktatur und Widerstand, Bd. 4. Münster: Lit, 2003, pp. 547–48.
  5. ^ a b c d e f "NORDEN, Albert (1904–82)". Kabinettsprotocollen. Das Bundersarchiv.
  6. ^ Zuckermann, Moshe. Zwischen Politik und Kultur — Juden in der DDR. Conferences / Institut für Deutsche Geschichte der Universität Tel Aviv, 1. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2002, p. 33.
  7. ^ Palmier, Jean Michel. Weimar in exile: the antifascist emigration in Europe and America. London: Verso, 2006. p. 320
  8. ^ a b Herf, Jeffrey. Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997, p. 170.
  9. Stanford
    : Hoover Institution Press, 1982, p. 109.
  10. ^ "East Germany — Party Congresses". Country Data. July 1987.
  11. ^ Herf, Jeffrey. Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997, pp. 182–5.
  12. ^ Ó Dochartaigh, Pól. The Portrayal of Jews in GDR Prose Fiction. Amsterdamer Publikationen zur Sprache und Literatur, 126. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997. p. 14

External links

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