Hermann Matern (17 June 1893 â 24 January 1971) was a German communist politician and high ranking functionary of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) in East Germany. From the nation's founding in 1949 until his death in 1971 he served as chairman of the Central Party Control Commission, deputy president of the Volkskammer, and leader of the SED in the Volkskammer, in addition to holding full membership in the party's Central Committee and Politburo.
Matern was the son of a social democratic worker and himself worked as a tanner. He joined the and later the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1911. He resigned from the SPD when the party accepted war loans. During the First World War he served as a soldier in France.
In 1918, he joined the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) and was a participant in the November Revolution and a member of a workers' and soldiers' council. Here he was elected commander of the guard regiment in Magdeburg. From 1919 to 1926 he worked as a tanner in Burg, became a member of the KPD and became KPD chairman in Burg, works council chairman, honorary city council and from 1926 to 1928 KPD trade union secretary. He was a member of the Gau Board and the Reich Tariff Commission of the German Leather Workers' Association. He became political leader of the party's Magdeburg district in 1927, and from 1928 to 1929 attended the International Lenin School in Moscow. When he returned to Germany he resumed his role as Magdeburg political leader until 1931, when he was transferred to serve as political leader of the East Prussia district until 1933. In the years 1932 and 1933 he was a member of the Prussian state parliament.
After the rise of the Nazi regime, Matern was arrested in 1933. In September 1934 he managed to escape from the Stettin-Altdamm prison. He emigrated to Czechoslovakia, then via Switzerland to France. It was here in 1935 that he met his future wife Jenny, who followed him from then on and also became a politician. In the Lutetia district (1935 to 1936) he was involved in the attempt to create a popular front against the Nazi regime. His escape took him via Belgium to the Netherlands, Norway and finally Sweden. In the spring of 1941 he moved to Moscow. He became a member of the National Committee for Free Germany. Later he was a teacher at the Central Anti-fascist School in Krasnogorsk.
On 1 May 1945 Matern returned to Germany with Anton Ackermann's group. He was one of the signatories of the programmatic appeal of the Central Committee of the KPD of 11 June 1945. Until 1946 he was the first secretary of the district leadership of the KPD in Saxony. After the unification of the SPD and KPD in the Soviet zone of occupation, Matern served as chairman of the regional association of Greater Berlin of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) from 1946 to 1948, alongside .
Matern was a member of the central secretariat of the party executive from 1946 to 1950, and was made chairman of the Central Party Control Commission (ZPKK) on 21 October 1948 and a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED in 1950. In the Politburo, he was responsible for controlling the âÂÂTraffic Departmentâ of the Central Committee, which was responsible for the secret connections to the KPD in West Germany, which was illegal from 1955, and later to the DKP, and for the financing of these parties. As one of the leading politicians he participated in the MarxistâÂÂLeninist orientation of the SED.
From 1949 he was a member of the Provisional People's Chamber, from 1950 to 1954 as vice-president, then as the first deputy of the president and from 1957 to 1960 as chairman of the standing committee for the local representations. He was a member of the National Defense Council of the GDR.
Following the East German uprising of 1953, a majority of the Politburo supported removing Walter Ulbricht as First Secretary of the party; only Matern and one other, Erich Honecker, remained loyal to Ulbricht. Ulbricht was saved with the support of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, and subsequently purged the opposition from the Politburo.
Matern became a member of the International Federation Resistance of Fighters General Council in 1963.
Matern was convinced of the SED's claim to leadership. At the 7th All-German Workers' Conference in Leipzig in 1958, he said:<blockquote>âÂÂTo have state power in your hands is of great importance. [...] We never think of giving up workers' and peasants' power again. We will not allow anyone to run for election who wants to rebuild capitalism. [...] That is why there is no opposition based on bourgeois ideas. "</blockquote>
Matern died in East Berlin on 24 January 1971. His urn was buried in the memorial of the socialists in the Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde in Berlin-Lichtenberg.
The German Post Office of the GDR issued a special stamp on the occasion of his 80th birthday on 13 June 1973.
Many streets, schools and factories bore the name of Matern in the GDR.
The 8th Fighter Squadron of the Air Force of the National People's Army (LSK / LV) in Marxwalde had had his name since 1972, as did the technical school of the Ministry of the Interior of the GDR in Heyrothsberge.
In February 1971, Secondary School No. 70 in Moscow received a new name - "Special Secondary School No. 70 Hermann Matern" (ÃÂÃÂõôýÃÂàÃÂÿõÃÂøðûÃÂýðàÃÂúþûð â 70 øüõýø ÃÂõÃÂüðýð ÃÂðÃÂõÃÂýð).
A plaque on the enclosure of Wackerbarth Castle still commemorates the meeting of Soviet politicians and military officials (Anastas Mikoyan and Ivan Konev) with German politicians (Hermann Matern, Kurt Fischer and Rudolf Friedrichs) in May 1945.