Bernard Koenen

{{Short description|German politician (1889–1964)}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Bernard Koenen | image = Bundesarchiv Bild 183-83285-0007, Bernhard Koenen Edit.jpg | caption = Koenen in 1961 | office1 = First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party in Bezirk Halle | term_start1 = April 1958 | term_end1 = 21 January 1963 | predecessor1 = Franz Bruk | successor1 = Horst Sindermann | term_start2 = 1 August 1952 | term_end2 = 1953 | predecessor2 = ''Himself'' {{small|(Saxony-Anhalt)}} | successor2 = Heinz Glaser | office3 = East German Ambassador to Czechoslovakia | term_start3 = 1953 | term_end3 = April 1958 | predecessor3 = Fritz Große | successor3 = Georg Stibi | office4 = First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party in Saxony-Anhalt | 1blankname4 = Serving with | 1namedata4 = Bruno Böttge {{small|(1946–1948)}} Werner Bruschke {{small|(1948–1949)}} | term_start4 = 7 April 1946 | term_end4 = 1 August 1952 | predecessor4 = ''Position established'' | successor4 = ''Himself'' {{small|(Bezirk Halle)}} Franz Bruk {{small|(Bezirk Cottbus)}} Karl Schirdewan {{small|(Bezirk Leipzig)}} Alois Pisnik {{small|(Bezirk Magdeburg)}} {{Collapsed infobox section begin |last=yes |Parliamentary constituencies |titlestyle=border:1px dashed lightgrey;}}{{Infobox officeholder |embed=yes | office5 = Member of the Volkskammer for Halle | term_start5 = 16 November 1958 | term_end5 = 30 April 1964 | predecessor5 = ''Multi-member district'' | successor5 = Dieter Ziegler | term_start6 = 18 March 1948 | term_end6 = 17 October 1954 | predecessor6 = ''Constituency established'' | successor6 = ''Multi-member district'' | office7 = Member of the Landtag of Saxony-Anhalt | term_start7 = 18 November 1946 | term_end7 = 2 October 1950 | predecessor7 = ''Constituency established'' | successor7 = ''Multi-member district'' {{Collapsed infobox section end}}}} | birth_name = Bernard Johann Heinrich Koenen | birth_date = {{Birth date|1889|02|17|df=y}} | birth_place = Hamburg, German Empire | death_date = {{Death date and age|1964|04|30|1889|02|17|df=y}} | death_place = East Berlin, East Germany | resting_place = Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde | party = SPD {{small|(1907–1917)}} USPD {{small|(1917–1920)}} KPD {{small|(1920–1946)}} SED {{small|(after 1946)}} | parents = | spouse = Frieda Bockentien | children = {{hlist|Viktor|Alfred}} | relatives = Wilhelm Koenen (brother) | occupation = {{hlist|Politician|Trade Unionist|Machinist}} | awards = Order of Karl Marx | allegiance = {{flag|German Empire}} | service_years = 1910–1912 1914–1916 | battles = World War I | module2 = {{collapsible list | title = Central institution membership | bullets = on | 1946–1964: Full member, Central Committee{{refn|group=note|Party Executive Committee until 1950}} | 1943–1946: Full member, KPD Central Committee | 1923–1925: Member, KPD Central Commission }} ---- {{collapsible list | title = Other offices held | bullets = on | 1960–1964: Member, State Council | 1924–1929: Member, Prussian State Council | 1922–1933: Member, Landtag of the Province of Saxony | 1919–1933: Member, Merseburg City Council }} }}

'''Bernard Johann Heinrich Koenen''' (17 February 1889 – 30 April 1964) was a German communist politician and trade unionist who served in several legislative positions in the Weimar Republic and East Germany between 1919 and 1964. In the latter state, he also served as First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party in Saxony-Anhalt from 1946 to 1952, in Bezirk Halle from 1952 to 1953 and again from 1958 to 1963, and as East German ambassador to Czechoslovakia from 1953 to 1958.

==Life==

===Early years=== Koenen was born in Hamburg, the son of a carpenter-joiner and a cook. His father was a Socialist activist who participated in the founding of the Second International in Paris five months after his birth.<ref name=BiographischeDatenbankenBK>{{cite web|url=http://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/wer-war-wer-in-der-ddr-%2363%3B-1424.html?ID=1798|author1= Helmut Müller-Enbergs|author-link= Helmut Müller-Enbergs|author2= Bernd-Rainer Barth|author2-link= Bernd-Rainer Barth |title =Koenen, Bernard (Johann Heinrich) * 17.2.1889, † 30.4.1964 1. Sekretär der SED-Bezirksleitung Halle, Diplomat|publisher= Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur: Biographische Datenbanken |accessdate= 31 January 2015}}</ref> By the turn of the century his father was a leading member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).<ref name=DKPSachsBK/> On 17 January 1906 they were among an estimated 80,000 people in Hamburg to take part in Germany's first ever mass-political protest march,<ref name=DKPSachsBK/> protesting an electoral system which privileged the upper classes at the expense of the working class; Bernard Koenen distributed leaflets at the march.<ref name=DKPSachsBK>{{cite web|url=http://parteilehrjahr.dkp-lsa.de/html/bernhard_koenen.html|archive-url=https://archive.today/20150131175954/http://parteilehrjahr.dkp-lsa.de/html/bernhard_koenen.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=31 January 2015|title=Bernard Koenen (17. Februar 1889 – 30. April 1964) ....."Das war ein echter Kommunist"|author=Günter Freyer|publisher=DKP Saxony-Anhalt|work=Rote Kalenderblätter DKP Brandenburg|accessdate=31 January 2015}}</ref>

On leaving school Koenen had embarked on an apprenticeship as a machine fitter and lathe operator, and in 1906 joined the German Metal Workers' Union. The next year he turned 18 and joined the SPD.<ref name=rosaluxstifBK>{{cite web |url=http://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/Manuskripte_53_2.pdf|pages=107–108|title=Koenen, Bernhard, 17.2.1889 (Hamburg) – 30.4.1964 (Berlin) |author= GOTTFRIED HAMACHER unter Mitarbeit von André Lohmar |author2= Herbert Mayer |author3= Günter Wehner |author4= Harald Wittstock |name-list-style= amp|work=Kurzbiographien| publisher= {{ill|Karl Dietz Verlag|de}}, Berlin & Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Berlin|date=2005|accessdate=31 January 2015}}</ref> His skills evidently made him readily employable and a period of travelling followed, taking in Lausanne, Brussels, Lille, and Tunisia, where, in Bizerte, he was among those who founded the Socialist Party in Tunisia.<ref name=BiographischeDatenbankenBK/> He undertook his military service between 1910 and 1912 and then returned to working abroad in industry. He was called up into the army in 1914, but released from military service in 1916 on account of "anti-military activities". By 1917 he had relocated to Leuna in Saxony-Anhalt where he worked as an electrician. In 1917 he joined the break-away Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD)<ref name=rosaluxstifBK/> which had split primarily on account of the mainstream SPD's continuing support for the war. During the November Revolution, Koenen was chairman of the works council at the Leuna Chemicals Plant where he was then working.<ref name=handbuch58/><ref name=handbuch63/>

===Weimar Germany=== Koenen joined the recently formed Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1920, becoming a leading member of the party in the Halle-Merseburg region alongside his brother Wilhelm.<ref name=rosaluxstifBK/><ref name=weitz>{{cite book |last=Weitz |first=Eric D. |authorlink=Eric D. Weitz |title=Creating German Communism, 1890-1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State |pages=136, 272, 277, 299 |date=1997 |publisher=Princeton University Press |url=https://www.bannedthought.net/Germany/KPD/General/CreatingGermanCommunism-1890-1990-Weitz-1997-OCR-sm.pdf |isbn=978-0-691-02682-4 |language=en}}</ref> In 1923 he joined the party's national organization commission.<ref name=HandBuchDeuKom/> He served on the Merseburg City Council from 1919 to 1933, the {{ill|Provinziallandtag der Provinz Sachsen|de|lt=Landtag of the Province of Saxony}} from 1922 to 1933, and the Prussian State Council from 1924 to 1929.<ref name=handbuch58>{{cite book |title=Handbuch der Volkskammer der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik 1958-1963 |date=1959 |publisher={{ill|Kongress-Verlag|de}} |location=Berlin |pages=315–316 |url=https://www.gvoon.de/handbuch-volkskammer-ddr-3-wahlperiode-1958-1963/seite-315-541778.html |access-date=8 March 2026}}</ref> Factionalism continued to be a feature of left-wing politics during the 1920s, and from the middle of the decade Koenen was identified with the so-called Conciliator faction (''Versöhnler''), which led in 1929 to his being relieved of some of his party offices by the party leader, Ernst Thälmann.<ref name=weitz/>

===Nazi Germany=== In January 1933, the NSDAP (Nazi Party) took power and set about establishing one-party government in Germany. Leading members of the KPD were particular targets. On 12 February 1933, during the course of the Eisleben {{ill|Eisleber Blutsonntag|de}} (Bloody Sunday) Nazi propaganda march, several Communist leaders were killed; Koenen, however, was merely assaulted and badly injured by SA members, as a result of which he lost an eye.<ref name=spiegel151949>{{cite web |url=http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-44436242.html |title=Ein Auge genügt Ueber Leichen gehen beide|publisher=Der Spiegel (online)|author=|date=9 April 1959|accessdate=1 February 2015}}</ref> For the next few months, with a warrant out for his arrest, he was concealed in a private clinic by a doctor who was sympathetic to the communist cause.

===Exile=== In May 1933, along with several other fugitive communists, he managed to get to the Saarland,<ref name=rosaluxstifBK/> the only part of Germany still under foreign military occupation following the end of the First World War. In July 1933 Koenen emigrated to the Soviet Union, where he would remain until 1945.<ref name=BiographischeDatenbankenBK/> Initially he worked as the Organisation Secretary of the International Red Aid organisation. Then in 1937 he was caught up in Stalin's purges and detained by the NKVD until 1939,<ref name=BiographischeDatenbankenBK/> during which he was tortured.<ref name=weitz/> However, in 1940 he was again trusted to undertake assignments.<ref name=BiographischeDatenbankenBK/> Between 1941 and 1943 he worked for the "Deutschen Volkssender" ("''German People's Radio''") radio station, transferring in August 1943 to Radio "Freies Deutschland" ("''Free Germany''").<ref name=rosaluxstifBK/> He started to work for the Soviet sponsored National Committee for a Free Germany in 1943, which was also the year in which he joined the Central Committee of the (exiled) KPD.<ref name=rosaluxstifBK/><ref name=handbuch63>{{cite book |title=Die Volkskammer der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik 4. Wahlperiode |date=1964 |publisher={{ill|Staatsverlag der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik|de}} |location=Berlin |page=360 |url=https://www.gvoon.de/volkskammer-ddr-4-wahlperiode-1963-1967/seite-360-543389.html |access-date=8 March 2026}}</ref>

===Postwar=== [[File:Fotothek df pk 0000168 044 Porträts, H. Köhnen Bernard Koenen, Olga Körner, Eva Höhn, Gertrud Graeser (Rast).jpg|thumb|left|Portrait by Abraham Pisarek, 1946]] Koenen returned in 1945 to the Soviet occupation zone in what remained of Germany.<ref name=rosaluxstifBK/> In April 1946 he became a founding member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). The creation of the party came about through a contentious merger in the Soviet zone of the Communist Party and the more moderately left-wing SPD. The merger was in theory one of equals, but by the time the German Democratic Republic was formally founded in 1949 it was noteworthy that the positions of party influence and leadership were almost all held by men who, like Koenen, had been members of the KPD until 1946. With right wing policies discredited by twelve disastrous years of Nazi government, the de facto neutralising of the moderate left allowed a return to one-party government, but this time the template had been prepared, in some detail, in Moscow. During the late 1940s, Koenen worked as a party officer in the Halle region.<ref name=rosaluxstifBK/> Between 1946 and 1952 he was also a member and leader of the SED group in the Landtag of Saxony-Anhalt.<ref name=BiographischeDatenbankenBK/>

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-S88901, Halle, DDR-Gründung, Kundgebung, Rede Koenen.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.2|Koenen giving a speech in a city square in Halle to celebrate the birth of the German Democratic Republic, 8 October 1949]]

At the national level, Koenen was a member of the SED Central Committee from 1946 until his death in 1964.<ref name=spiegel201964>{{cite web|url=http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-46173549.html|title=GESTORBEN BERNARD KOENEN |author=|publisher=Der Spiegel (online)|date=13 May 1964|accessdate=1 February 2015}}</ref> Under the Soviet system, on which the East German constitution was modelled, the responsibilities of government ministers were restricted to implementing the decisions of the Party Central Committee, while a Single List voting system ensured that the ''Volkskammer'', the national legislature, was also controlled by the ruling SED (that is to say, by its Central Committee). In terms of power and influence Koenen's Central Committee membership was therefore of greater significance than membership of regional or national legislatures, though in practice there were plenty of Central Committee members who simultaneously held office in national or regional legislatures and/or as government ministers. Koenen himself combined Central Committee membership with membership of the ''Volkskammer'',<ref name=handbuch58/> although it was reported that he had declined ministerial office in order to avoid having to cut back on party duties.<ref name=SachswikiBK>{{cite web|url=http://www.sachsen-anhalt-wiki.de/index.php/Bernard_Koenen|title=Bernard Koenen|work=Ein Projekt der Mitteldeutsche Zeitung|author=Benutzer:Rudelsburg|date=7 February 2013|accessdate=1 February 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150204012502/http://www.sachsen-anhalt-wiki.de/index.php/Bernard_Koenen|archive-date=4 February 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref>

From 1946 to 1964 Koenen also held a seat in the National Legislative Assembly. However, in 1952 he lost his seat and leadership position in the regional legislature of Saxony-Anhalt when regional legislatures were abolished in the context of a wider programme of regional government reform. Partly as a consequence of those reforms, local and municipal councils became more important. Between 1952 and 1953, and again, in succession to {{ill|Franz Bruk|de}}, from 1958 to 1963 Koenen served as First Secretary to the SED Regional Leadership (''Bezirksleitung'') in Halle.<ref name=BiographischeDatenbankenBK/>

From 1953 to 1958 Koenen was appointed as his country's ambassador to neighbouring Czechoslovakia, an important post, succeeding Fritz Große.<ref name=BiographischeDatenbankenBK/>

Between 1960 and 1964 he was a member of the State Council of East Germany.<ref>Hermann Weber: ''Die Wandlung des deutschen Kommunismus'', Bd. 2; p. 186f</ref>

Outside politics, he also worked as a teacher and journalist.

==Family== Koenen's elder brother, Wilhelm Koenen (1886–1963), was also a German Communist politician.

Koenen married {{ill|Frieda Koenen|de|lt=Frieda Bockentien}} (1890–1968) during the First World War.<ref name=HandBuchDeuKom>{{cite web |url=http://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/wer-war-wer-in-der-ddr-%2363%3B-1424.html?ID=1798|title=Koenen, Bernard (Johann Heinrich)|work=Biographische Angaben aus dem Handbuch der Deutschen Kommunisten|date=|author1=Hermann Weber|author-link=Hermann Weber|author2=Andreas Herbst|author2-link=Andreas Herbst (Historian)|publisher=Karl Dietz Verlag Berlin|accessdate=10 February 2015}}</ref> Their sons {{ill|Viktor Koenen|de|lt=Viktor}} and Alfred both joined the Red Army in order to fight Nazi Germany. Viktor (1920–1942) was killed over or in Poland in 1942.<ref name=rosaluxstifBK/> (There are conflicting reports as to how he died.) Alfred (1921–1995) survived the war and had a career as an army officer, and later as a diplomat.<ref name=rosaluxstifBK/>

==Awards and honors== ===East Germany=== * {{ill|Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Medaille|de|lt=Ernst Moritz Arndt Medal}}<ref name=handbuch58/><ref name=handbuch63/> * 1958: Medal for Fighters Against Fascism<ref name=handbuch58/><ref name=handbuch63/> * 1958: {{ill|Medal for Participation in the Struggles from 1918 to 1923|de|Medaille für die Teilnahme an den bewaffneten Kämpfen der deutschen Arbeiterklasse in den Jahren 1918 bis 1923}}<ref name=handbuch58/><ref name=handbuch63/> * Johannes R. Becher Medal in Gold<ref name=handbuch63/> * Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold and Silver<ref name=handbuch58/><ref name=handbuch63/> * 1959: Order of Karl Marx<ref name=handbuch58/><ref name=handbuch63/>

===Foreign=== * Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"<ref name=handbuch58/><ref name=handbuch63/> * Order of the Banner of Labour<ref name=handbuch63/>

==Notes== {{reflist|group=note}}

==References== {{reflist|2}}

==External links== * {{commons-inline}} * [https://archive.org/details/sim_spiegel_1947-03-01_1_9/page/6/mode/1up Photograph of Koenen] in ''Der Spiegel''

{{DEFAULTSORT:Koenen, Bernard}} Category:1889 births Category:1964 deaths Category:Politicians from Hamburg Category:Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians Category:Independent Social Democratic Party politicians Category:Communist Party of Germany politicians Category:Members of the Central Commission of the Communist Party of Germany Category:Members of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany Category:Members of the State Council of East Germany Category:Members of the Provisional Volkskammer Category:Members of the 1st Volkskammer Category:Members of the 2nd Volkskammer Category:Members of the 3rd Volkskammer Category:Members of the 4th Volkskammer Category:Ambassadors of East Germany to Czechoslovakia Category:Members of the Landtag of Saxony-Anhalt Category:Refugees from Nazi Germany in the Soviet Union Category:National Committee for a Free Germany members Category:Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit in gold