Walter Ulbricht

Walter Ulbricht (1893-1973), East German statesman and president (1960-73) of the German Democratic Republic. He was born on June 30, 1893, in Leipzig and upon completion of his elementary school education was apprenticed to a carpenter. He became a member of the Socialist party in 1912 and left to join the newly founded Communist party of Germany in 1919. He served (1928-33) as a Communist deputy in the Reichstag, the German parliament.

During the National Socialist (Nazi) regime in Germany, Ulbricht lived in exile in the Soviet Union, Spain, and Czechoslovakia. He returned to occupied Germany in 1945 and in 1946 joined in founding the coalition Social Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED). He was deputy premier of the newly constituted German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1949 to 1950, when he became first secretary of the SED. From 1960 until his death in East Berlin, on August 1, 1973, he served as head of state by virtue of his chairmanship of the council of state. In 1971, however, the reins of power passed from his hands when he resigned as first secretary of the SED. The Ulbricht years came under scrutiny and criticism in East Germany after his departure from office.