Hans Rietz

Hans Rietz
Peter Heinz Junge, 1961

Hans Rietz (26 April 1914 - 25 May 1996) was an East German politician who became a top official in the country's Democratic Farmers' Party (" Demokratische Bauernpartei Deutschlands" / DBD), which was one of five so-called bloc parties controlled by the ruling Socialist Unity Party ("Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands" / SED). For many years Rietz served as a member of the National parliament ("Volkskammer") and he was also a long-standing deputy chairman of the State Council.[1]

Life

Hans Rietz was born to a working-class mother in Könnern, a small manufacturing town between Magdeburg and Halle.[1] Little is known of his father, but in 1960 it was reported by Neues Deutschland, the mass-circulation newspaper of East Germany's ruling SED (party), that the father of Hans Dietz was a member of the Spartacus League and later of Germany's Communist Party which grew out of it.[2]

He attended junior and middle school at nearby Bitterfeld, before undertaking an apprenticeship at Wolfen as a machinist between 1928 and 1932. From the start of his apprenticeship Rietz was a member of the Young Communists and of the Metal Workers' Union ("Deutscher Metallarbeiter-Verband" / DMV). On successful completion of the apprenticeship he remained with IG Farben, working as a machinist at their large Wolfen plant till 1939, apart from a two year break for mandatory military service.[1] (The term of military service had been extended fron one year to two with effect from 24 August 1936.[3])

War returned in September 1939: Rietz was conscripted initially into the National Labour Service ("Reichsarbeitsdienst" / RAD) and later into the army. He was sent to fight on the Russian front and had reached the junior-officer rank of Oberwachtmeister by the time he was captured by the Soviets.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Siegfried Kuntsche. "Rietz, Hans * 26.4.1914, † 25.5.1996 Stellv. Vorsitzender der DBD, Stellv. Staatsratsvorsitzender". "Wer war wer in der DDR?". Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin & Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur, Berlin. Retrieved 12 October 2018.
  2. ↑ "Hans Rietz". Neues Deutschland. 13 September 1960. Retrieved 12 October 2018.
  3. ↑ Albert S. Kotowski (2000). Die Frage der polniischen Westgrenze. Hitlers Bewwegung im Urteil der polnischen Natiionaldemokratir. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden. p. 149. ISBN 978-3-447-04214-7.
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