Von "Antifaschisten" und "neuen Kadern": Sozialbiografische Betrachtungen zu den ersten Kreissekretären der SED in der Region Sachsen (1945-1971)

Abstract

"Among the ranks of the SED, the First District Secretaries occupied regional key positions. On the one hand, being actors of the lower coordination points of the Party, they acted as essential catalysts of the centralized will of the Party, on the other hand they held the first contact positions for social- and economy-political feedbacks from the Saxonian districts. The following contribution discusses the social-biographic background of this functional elite. In this context, both its general social profile and marked, cohort-specific internal differentiations will be analysed. In each case, formative patterns of experience from the first part of the 20th century left their marks on the collective biographies of these 'Heads of the District', helping much to stabilize the SED regime until the 1970s." (author's abstract)