1949–1973: Full member, Politburo of the Central Committee
1946–1973: Full member, Central Committee[note 1]
1930–1937: Full member, KPD Politburo
Other offices held
1960–1973: Member, State Council
1960–1973: Member, National Defence Council
1954–1960: Member, Security Commission at the Politburo
1946–1951: Member, Landtag of Saxony-Anhalt
1946–1950: Deputy Chairman, Socialist Unity Party
Leader of East Germany
←First holder
Honecker→
This article is part of a series about Walter Ulbricht
First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party
SED
1950
1954
1958
1963
1967
1971
Personal life
Cult of personality
Early political career
Communist Party of Germany
German Revolution of 1918–1919
Murder of Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck
Ulbricht Group
Merger of the KPD and SPD
German Economic Commission
Comecon
Government and policies
Constitution of East Germany
1949
1968
National Front of the GDR
New Course
1953 uprising
Creation of the LPG
Warsaw Pact
State Council
Berlin Wall
New Economic System
Economic System of Socialism
Legacy
Ulbricht Doctrine
Ostpolitik
Erich Honecker
Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde
Family
Lotte Ulbricht
Beate Ulbricht
v
t
e
Walter Ernst Paul Ulbricht (German:[ˈvaltɐˈʔʊlbʁɪçt]; 30 June 1893 – 1 August 1973) was a German communist politician. Ulbricht played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and later in the early development and establishment of the German Democratic Republic. As the First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971, he was the chief decision-maker in East Germany. From President Wilhelm Pieck's death in 1960 on, he was also the East German head of state until his own death in 1973. As the leader of a significant Communist satellite, Ulbricht had a degree of bargaining power with the Kremlin that he used effectively. For example, he demanded the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 when the Kremlin was reluctant.[1]
Ulbricht began his political life during the German Empire, when he joined first the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 1912 later joining the anti-World War I Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) in 1917. The following year, he deserted the Imperial German Army and took part in the German Revolution of 1918. He joined the Communist Party of Germany in 1920 and became a leading party functionary, serving in its Central Committee from 1923 onward. After the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933 and the Nazi-led investigation into his role in ordering the 1931 murder of police captains Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck, Ulbricht lived in Paris and Prague from 1933 to 1937 and in the Soviet Union from 1937 to 1945.
After the end of World War II, Ulbricht re-organized the German Communist Party in the Soviet occupation zone along Stalinist lines. He played a key role in the forcible merger of the KPD and SPD into the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in 1946. He became the First Secretary of the SED and effective leader of the recently established East Germany in 1950. The Soviet Army occupation force violently suppressed the uprising of 1953 in East Germany on 17 June 1953, while Ulbricht hid in the Soviet Army headquarters in Berlin-Karlshorst. East Germany joined the Soviet-controlled Warsaw Pact upon its founding in 1955. Ulbricht presided over the total suppression of civil and political rights in the East German state, which functioned as a communist-ruled dictatorship from its founding in 1949 onward.
The nationalization of East German industry under Ulbricht failed to raise the standard of living to a level comparable to that of West Germany. The result was massive emigration, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the country to the west every year in the 1950s. When Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev gave permission for a wall to stop the outflow in Berlin, Ulbricht had the Berlin Wall built in 1961, which triggered a diplomatic crisis but succeeded in curtailing emigration. The failures of Ulbricht's New Economic System and Economic System of Socialism from 1963 to 1970 led to his forcible retirement for "health reasons" and replacement as First Secretary in 1971 by Erich Honecker with Soviet approval. Ulbricht suffered a stroke and died in 1973.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page). Cite error: There are <ref group=note> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=note}} template (see the help page).
^Hope M. Harrison, Driving the Soviets Up the Wall: Soviet–East German Relations, 1953–1961. (2003) ch 4.
Walter Ernst Paul Ulbricht (German: [ˈvaltɐ ˈʔʊlbʁɪçt]; 30 June 1893 – 1 August 1973) was a German communist politician. Ulbricht played a leading role...
Ulbricht is a German surname. Notable people with this name include: Beate Ulbricht (1944–1991), Soviet adopted daughter of Walter and Lotte Ulbricht...
First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of the GDR WalterUlbricht and his wife Lotte. Ulbricht was born Mariya Pestunova in 1944 in Leipzig in what...
Party, WalterUlbricht for the first "Deutschlandtreffen ("German Festival") of the Free German Youth. The stadium was named after WalterUlbricht. In the...
Germany (SED) official and the second wife of the East German leader WalterUlbricht. She was born the younger of two children in Rixdorf in 1903. Her father...
co-chairmanship of the ruling SED (which he held with Grotewohl) in 1950, when WalterUlbricht became the party's first secretary as the party restructured along...
The Ulbricht Doctrine, named after East German leader WalterUlbricht, was the assertion that normal diplomatic relations between East Germany and West...
and in August 1961, with Khrushchev's backing, East German leader WalterUlbricht ordered the closing of the border and the construction of a wall around...
of Marxism–Leninism and the Russian language compulsory in schools. WalterUlbricht was the party's dominant figure and effective leader of East Germany...
Schirdewan was seen as a potential successor to WalterUlbricht but fell out of favour in 1958. Ulbricht continued to lead the government until 1971, while...
led, with support of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, to him replacing WalterUlbricht as General Secretary of the SED and chairman of the National Defence...
Deutschlands, or KPD) and the National Committee for a Free Germany, led by WalterUlbricht, who flew from the Soviet Union back to Germany on April 30, 1945....
apparent to longtime party leader WalterUlbricht, but his ascendancy was checked by Erich Honecker. After Ulbricht's death in 1973, Stoph became Chairman...
Throbbing Gristle, released in Germany in April 1982 through record label WalterUlbricht Schallfolien. The album was recorded in Rome in March 1981 in the RAI...
and served as the de jure head of government under First Secretary WalterUlbricht until his death in 1964. Grotewohl was born on 11 March 1894 in Braunschweig...
normality" in a form of "silent repression". Erich Honecker's succession to WalterUlbricht as First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in...
would remain divided indefinitely. In East Berlin, General Secretary WalterUlbricht of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), the ruling party of...
in Germany in Mecklenburg. After the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 WalterUlbricht was summoned for a visit to Moscow with the new Soviet leadership,...
1968 and 1970, which was introduced and led by the country's leader, WalterUlbricht. It focused on high technology sectors in an attempt to make self-sufficient...
War (1947–1991), as named by the Western Allies. East German leader WalterUlbricht agitated and maneuvered to get the Soviet Union's permission to construct...
Zedong, Karl Marx, Hosni Mubarak, Josip Broz Tito, Nicolae Ceausescu, WalterUlbricht, Gavrilo Princip, Bela Kun, and Che Guevara. Crow acquired these former...
estimated at $7 billion to $9 billion, with East German party leader WalterUlbricht later claiming that West Germany owed him $17 billion in compensation...
under WalterUlbricht, Mielke was not involved in routine intelligence briefings to the leadership which, instead, were provided directly to Ulbricht by...
churches. For the same reasons, the structure was also called "St. Walter" (from WalterUlbricht). U.S. President Ronald Reagan mentioned this in his Tear down...
uses in propaganda, such as a book on the life of East German leader WalterUlbricht and another on Albanian leader Enver Hoxha. As of 2011, Madonna's 1992...
1945–1949. Tiulpanov spoke fluent German. He was a strong supporter of WalterUlbricht and of the Sovietization of eastern Germany. He closely monitored the...
and held the office until his death, while the SED general secretary WalterUlbricht assumed most executive authority. Socialist leader Otto Grotewohl (1894–1964)...