Wilhelm Koenen

{{Short description|German politician (1886–1963)}} {{Infobox politician | name = Wilhelm Koenen | image = Fotothek df pk 0000168 041 Porträts, H. Köhnen Bernard Koenen, Olga Körner, Eva Höhn, Gertrud Graeser (Rast Trim.jpg | caption = Koenen in 1947 | office1 = Chairman of the Socialist Unity Party in Saxony | alongside1 = Otto Buchwitz | deputy1 = {{ubl|Otto Schön|Erich Mückenberger}} | term_start1 = 21 April 1946 | term_end1 = 4 December 1948 | predecessor1 = ''Position established'' | successor1 = Ernst Lohagen Erich Mückenberger {{Collapsed infobox section begin |last=yes |Parliamentary constituencies |titlestyle=border:1px dashed lightgrey;}}{{Infobox officeholder |embed=yes | office2 = Member of the Volkskammer for Berlin | term_start2 = 18 March 1948 | term_end2 = 19 October 1963 | predecessor2 = ''Constituency established'' | successor2 = ''Multi-member district'' | office3 = Member of the Landtag of Prussia for Merseburg | term_start3 = 25 May 1932 | term_end3 = 31 March 1933 | predecessor3 = ''Multi-member district'' | successor3 = ''Constituency abolished'' | office4 = Member of the Reichstag for Merseburg | term_start4 = 24 June 1920 | term_end4 = 31 July 1932 | predecessor4 = ''Constituency established'' | successor4 = ''Multi-member district'' | office5 = Member of the National Assembly for Merseburg | term_start5 = 6 February 1919 | term_end5 = 21 May 1920 | predecessor5 = ''Office established'' | successor5 = ''Office abolished'' {{Collapsed infobox section end}}}} | birth_name = | birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1886|04|07}} | birth_place = Hamburg, German Empire | death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1963|10|19|1886|04|07}} | death_place = East Berlin, East Germany | resting_place = Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde | occupation = {{hlist|Journalist|Politician}} | party = SPD {{small|(1903–1917)}} USPD {{small|(1917–1920)}} KPD {{small|(1920–1946)}} SED {{small|(after 1946)}} | spouse = {{marriage|Emmy Damerius|1937}} | children = {{flatlist| * Heinrich * Johanna }} | parents = | relatives = Bernard Koenen (brother) | awards = Order of Karl Marx | allegiance = {{flag|German Empire}} | branch = ''Landsturm'' | service_years = | rank = | commands = | battles = World War I | module = {{collapsible list | title = Central institution membership | bullets = on | 1946–1963: Full member, Central Committee{{refn|group=note|Party Executive Committee until 1950}} | 1923–1926: Full member, KPD Politburo | 1923–1924; 1929–1946: Full member, KPD Central Committee{{refn|group=note|Zentrale until 1925}} }} ---- {{collapsible list | title = Other offices held | bullets = on | 1946–1949: Member, Landtag of Saxony | 1929–1932: Member, Prussian State Council | 1929–1931: Political Leader, Halle-Merseburg KPD | 1926–1932: Member, Berlin City Council | 1919–1920: Member, Halle City Council | 1918–1919: Commissar, Halle-Merseburg Workers' and Soldiers' Council }} }} '''Wilhelm Koenen''' (7 April 1886 – 19 October 1963) was a German communist journalist and politician who served in several legislative positions in the Weimar Republic and East Germany between 1919 and 1963. He also served as the first co-chairman of the Socialist Unity Party in Saxony from 1946 to 1948.

== Biography == === Early life === [[File:USPD-Vorstand.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.2|Koenen (second row, far right) among members of the USPD National Executive Committee at the party's Leipzig Congress, December 1919]] Koenen was born in Hamburg,<ref name="etg-bio">[http://www.etg-ziegenhals.de/Wilhelm_Koenen.html Brief biography of Wilhelm Koenen] Freundeskreis "Ernst-Thälmanns-Gedenkstätte" e.V. Ziegenhals. Received December 17, 2011 {{in lang|de}}</ref> the son of a socialist carpenter and a cook. After finishing Volksschule, he continued his education, taking classes in business from 1900 to 1903.<ref name="etg-bio" /> Koenen joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 1903.<ref name="barch-bio">[https://apps.bundesarchiv.de/aktenreichskanzlei/1919-1933/0011/adr/adrhl/kap1_4/para2_203.html Wilhelm Koenen] German Federal Archives, historical files from the Weimar Republic Reich Chancellery {{in lang|de}}</ref> In 1904, he found employment at a book shop in Kiel. In addition, he took courses at the workers' school in Hamburg and the Social Democrat Party school in Berlin. In 1907, he became a newspaper correspondent in Kiel and then in Königsberg. In 1911, he became editor of the social democrat newspaper, ''Volksblatt'', in Halle.<ref name="barch-bio" />

In 1913, he became a member of the local district SPD leadership and with the majority of the local membership, joined the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) in 1917.<ref name="etg-bio" /> According to at least one source, he served in the ''Landsturm'' ("Home Guard") during the First World War.<ref name=bundes/> During the German Revolution of 1918–1919, Koenen was the commissar of the Worker and Soldiers' Council of the Halle-Merseburg district. In the 1919 German federal election, he was elected to the Weimar National Assembly. On 16 July 1919, in the National Assembly, he called for the adoption of a constitutional provision that would exclusively grant to the authorities and charitable organizations the right to hold public film screenings for adolescents so that youth would be protected from the wheeling and dealing of "the capitalists".<ref>Minutes of the 58th Session of the National Assembly, from July 16, 1919, p. 1592. {{in lang|de}}</ref>

=== Weimar era === [[File:Wilhelm Koenen 1920.jpg|thumb|left|Koenen's official Reichstag portrait, 1920]] In 1919, Koenen was a member of the USPD's central committee, but in 1920 he joined the Communist Party (''Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands'', or KPD), where he became part of the left wing. He served as a member of the Weimar Reichstag from 1920 to 1932, then in the Prussian Landtag from 1932 to 1933 (leading the party list in the Merseburg district),<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kienast |first1=Ernst |title=Handbuch für den Preußischen Landtag |date=1932 |publisher=Schenk |location=Berlin |page=299 |url=https://digitale-sammlungen.llb-detmold.de/content/pageview/10098624 |access-date=7 April 2026}}</ref> in addition to the Berlin city council from 1926 to 1932.

From 1924, he was a member of the "Middle Group" (''Mittelgruppe'') and in 1925, actively supported the leadership group headed by Ernst Thälmann. Koenen served as political leader of the KPD for the Halle-Merseburg district from 1929 to 1931,<ref name="etg-bio" /> replacing Conciliator {{ill|Johannes Schröter (Politiker)|de|lt=Johannes Schröter}},<ref name=bundes>{{cite web |title=Koenen, Wilhelm |url=https://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/de/recherche/kataloge-datenbanken/biographische-datenbanken/wilhelm-koenen |website=bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de |publisher=Bundesstiftung Aufarbeitung |access-date=20 February 2026}}</ref> but internal politics later forced him into the background and he lost his party function in Halle and what had been his secure place on the party list. Koenen was one of some 40 people at {{ill|Illegale Tagung der KPD im Sporthaus Ziegenhals|de|lt=the meeting of the KPD central committee}} on 7 February 1933, at the ''{{ill|Sporthaus Ziegenhals|de}}'',<ref>[http://www.etg-ziegenhals.de/Teilnehmer.html Participants of the February 7, 1933, central committee meeting] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220314112946/https://www.etg-ziegenhals.de/Teilnehmer.html |date=March 14, 2022 }} Freundeskreis "Ernst-Thälmanns-Gedenkstätte" e.V. Ziegenhals. Received December 16, 2011 {{in lang|de}}</ref> just a week after the Nazi Party seized power and was the last time that Thälmann, chairman of the KPD, spoke to the central committee.<ref>[http://www.etg-ziegenhals.de/Die_Tagung.html "Die illegale Tagung des ZK der KPD am 7. Februar 1933"] Freundeskreis "Ernst-Thälmanns-Gedenkstätte" e.V. Ziegenhals. Received December 16, 2011 {{in lang|de}}</ref>

=== In exile === Koenen left Germany in June 1933 on the decision of the party leadership,<ref name="etg-bio" /> first going to the Saarland, then still under foreign occupation. He then went to France, where he was involved in the "Lutetia circle", trying to build a popular front against the Hitler régime. From 1935 to 1938, he lived in Czechoslovakia, where he was married to Emmy Damerius. They moved to England, where they were both taken into custody as an "enemy aliens" in 1940. She was sent to the Isle of Man until 1941; he was shipped to an internment camp in Canada until 1942. In 1943, he was a founding member of the "Free Germany" movement in London. In 1944, he worked at the British black propaganda radio station, Soldatensender Calais.

=== East Germany === [[File:Fotothek df hauptkatalog 0211053 003 Beratung des Sächsischen Landtages.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.2|Koenen speaks before the Landtag of Saxony, 1946]] In 1945, he returned to Germany and took part in rebuilding the KPD. After the forced merger of the SPD and the KPD into the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (''Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands'', or SED), he took part in building the SED in East Germany. Until 1946, he also worked as the chief editor of the KPD newspaper, ''Freiheit'' in Halle, forerunner of the ''Mitteldeutsche Zeitung''. In 1946, he became part of the board of the SED, as well as its central committee. Between 1946 and 1949, Koenen was a representative in the Saxon Landtag. From 1949 until his death, he was a member of the Volkskammer and was leader of the Secretariat. In May 1953, he was accused of "a lack of vigilance" and was reprimanded by the SED leadership. In 1955, he became the chairman of the ''Interparlamentarischen Gruppe'' (Interparliamentarian Group) German Democratic Republic. In 1956, Wilhelm Koenen was decorated with the Karl Marx Order.<ref name=bundes/>

== Personal life == Koenen married Emmy Damerius in 1937, and had two children from a prior marriage. His son Heinrich was arrested by the Gestapo at the home of Ilse Stöbe on 29 October 1942, and in February 1945 was shot at Sachsenhausen concentration camp.<ref>Heinrich-Wilhelm Wörmann, ''Widerstand in Charlottenburg''; Vol. 5, GDW, Berlin (1991), p. 133 {{in lang|de}}</ref>

Koenen's brother Bernard Koenen was arrested briefly during the Great Purge.<ref>Peter Erler, [https://books.google.com/books?id=aJMyzC9P8fgC&pg=PA239 "'Moskauer-Kader der KPD in der SBZ"]{{Dead link|date=June 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} in: Manfred Wilke (ed.), ''Die Anatomie der Parteizentrale: Die KPD/SED auf dem Weg zur Macht''. Berlin: Akademie Verlag (1998), p. 239, footnote 58. {{ISBN|3-05-003220-0}} Retrieved December 6, 2011 {{in lang|de}}</ref> He and his brother are both buried at the Socialists' Memorial at the Berlin cemetery, Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde. A street in Sangerhausen is named after Wilhelm Koenen.

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

== References == {{Reflist}}

== Sources == * Horst Neumann: ''Wilhelm Koenen'', Bibliographisches Institut: Leipzig 1971 * Asja Braune: ''Konsequent den unbequemen Weg gegangen. Adele Schreiber (1872–1957) Politikerin, Frauenrechtlerin, Journalistin'' 2002 in 2 Bänden = Diss. HU Berlin 2003.- Kap. 7 online: [http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/dissertationen/braune-asja-2003-01-27/HTML/chapter7.html Das Exil] mit Ausführungen zur Freien Deutschen Bewegung (FDB) und über die Freie Deutsche Hochschule in Großbritannien

== External links == {{Commons}} * {{DNB-Portal|118564315}} *[http://www.rosaluxemburgstiftung.de/cms/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/Manuskripte_53_2.pdf Brief biography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927212319/http://www.rosaluxemburgstiftung.de/cms/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/Manuskripte_53_2.pdf |date=2007-09-27 }} (PDF) Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung (2005) {{in lang|de}} * [https://archive.org/details/ernst-thalmann-1986/page/71/mode/1up "Ernst Thälmann and Wilhelm Koenen (to the right of Thälmann) at the graves of workers who fell during the March Battles of 1921" in Ernst Thälmann (1986)]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Koenen, Wilhelm}} Category:1886 births Category:1963 deaths Category:20th-century German journalists Category:20th-century German male journalists Category:Communist Party of Germany politicians Category:Exiles from Nazi Germany Category:Independent Social Democratic Party politicians Category:Members of the 1st Volkskammer Category:Members of the 2nd Volkskammer Category:Members of the 3rd Volkskammer Category:Members of the Landtag of Prussia Category:Members of the Landtag of Saxony Category:Members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany Category:Members of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Germany Category:Members of the Provisional Volkskammer Category:Members of the Reichstag 1920–1924 Category:Members of the Reichstag 1924 Category:Members of the Reichstag 1924–1928 Category:Members of the Reichstag 1928–1930 Category:Members of the Reichstag 1930–1932 Category:Members of the Weimar National Assembly Category:Politicians from Hamburg Category:Recipients of the Banner of Labor Category:Recipients of the Order of Karl Marx Category:Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver Category:Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians