Konrad Naumann

Konrad Naumann (25 November 1928 – 25 July 1992) was an East German politician.

He attended junior school in Holzhausen, on the east side of Leipzig, till 1931, and then middle school in Engelsdorf, a couple of miles to the north.

In 1939 became a member and later a group leader in the "Deutsches Jungvolk", by now part of the Hitler Youth organisation.

In 1944 his class was conscripted as Luftwaffenhelfer which by this stage in the war had become in most respects a schoolboy branch of the army.

His senior school, which he attended formally till 1945, was also in Leipzig.

Early in 1945 he was stationed in nearby Bad Lausick.

Shortly before the Americans arrived in April/May 1945 he deserted.

In November 1945 Naumann celebrated his seventeenth birthday and joined the Communist Party.

Between January and March 1946 he attended the local Party Academy.

He then took a full-time job with the local Leipzig district board of the Free German Youth (FDJ / Freie Deutsche Jugend) and its Dresden based regional board for Saxony.

In the meantime the German Communist Party was abolished, in April 1946, as a result of a controversial merger with the more moderately left-wing SPD (party).

Within the Soviet occupation zone this established the basis for a return to one-party government.

Communist Party members, along with those from the SPD, were invited to sign their membership across to the new Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED / Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands ), and Konrad Naumann was one of many who did so.

For a period he obtained promotions in his work with the FDJ, becoming local FDJ President in Leipzig.

The founder of the FDJ and its leader between 1946 and 1955 was Erich Honecker who was becoming increasingly influential in party circles by 1950 and whom Konrad Naumann got to know through their FDJ work.

Then, early in 1948, he was accused of "political mistakes" and relieved of his party functions, following which he obtained a job as an assistant mechanic in the lignite (brown coal) mines at Hirschfelde on the eastern side of Saxony.

Despite his difficultse earlier in the year, 1948/49 found Naumann working as an instructor for the FDJ National Council, based in Berlin.

Later in 1949 he moved north, becoming FDJ Secretary for work and social affairs with the organisations regional board in Mecklenburg.

He retained this post till 1951, at the same time sitting as a delegate in the Mecklenburg Regional Assembly.

In 1951 Naumann was sent to Moscow, signalling that he had been identified for future promotion.

Between 1951 and 1952 he studied at Moscow's Komsomol Academy.

Between 1952 and 1957 he served as First Secretary with the FDJ regional leadership in Frankfurt (Oder), was on the candidates list for membership of the regional SED (party) leadership team and a district councillor.

Nationally, he was also a member of the Central Council of the FDJ Central Committee between 1952 and 1967, serving as Committee Secretary at various times.

In 1959 he attended the Seventh World Festival of Youth and Students in Vienna, leading a party of 550 East German young people.

In 1963 Konrad Naumann was listed as a candidate for membership of the Party Central Committee.

Naumann also retained his powerbase at a regional level, serving as Second Secretary in the Party's Berlin Regional leadership from 1964 till 1971, and from 1971, in succession to Paul Verner, as First Secretary in the Berlin party leadership.

He built his career; initially, in regional politics, but between 1966 and 1986 he was important nationally as a member of the Central Committee of the country's ruling SED (party).

At times, Naumann was the unofficial number two to General Secretary Erich Honecker and seen as his potential successor.

In September 1966 he became one of its 131 members.

The Central Committee was the German Democratic Republic's most powerful political institution.

He also served from 1967 till 1986 as a Berlin City Councillor and a member of the National Legislature (Volkskammer).

Within the Central Committee, in 1973 Naumann was a candidate for Politburo membership.

He was also appointed in May 1976 a member of the party's Politburo.

Most Politburo members remained in post till they died.

He joined the politburo in 1976.

The next year he married, as her third husband, the actress Vera Oelschlegel.

The extent and nature of the relationship between Naumann and Oelschlegel while the latter was still married to her second husband, the writer Hermann Kant, was the subject of rumour and, at least in the west, press speculation.

Naumann was unusual in finding himself relieved of his Politburo (and other party) duties while still alive, following a speech in October 1985 which was felt to be insufficiently supportive of the party line.

Konrad Naumann was born in Leipzig during the final years of what later came to be known as the Weimar period.

His father was a financial auditor and his mother worked in garment manufacturing.