Rudi Wetzel

Rudi Wetzel (10 January 1909 - 31 August 1992) was a German political activist who became an East German journalist and newspaper editor after the Second World War.

Rudolf "Rudi" Wetzel was born in Rechenberg, a small town in the mining region of Saxony on the frontier with what was, at that time, the Austrian province of Bohemia.

His father worked as a decorator and furniture painter.

After leaving school he attended the Construction Academy in Dresden before embarking, in 1929, on the study of Pedagogy at the Dresden Technical University ("TU Dresden").

In 1929 he joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany ("Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands"; SPD).

In 1931 he switched to the Communist Party.

During the next couple of years he served as a party officer as chair of the Communist Students's Association in Dresden.

It was also during this time that he met the Hungarian Communist activist, Inke Rosza, who became his partner - probably also at some stage his wife.

Early in 1933 the Nazis took power and lost no time in transforming Germany into a one-party dictatorship.

The Reichstag fire at the end of February 1933 was blamed on "communists" and indeed people with records as communist activists were among those most assiduously targeted by the authorities.

Wetzel continued with his political activity after it became illegal and was first taken into "protective custody" in 1933, which put an end to his student career.

In 1934 he was sentenced to a two-year prison term for "preparing to commit high treason".

When the two years had been served he was transferred to the Sachsenburg concentration camp.

He was released in 1937, shortly after which he fled to Budapest with Inke.

Then, travelling via Paris and London he made his way to Hull in eastern England where he trained and worked as a welder.

In 1938 he moved on to Gothenburg and Jönköping in Sweden, where as a qualified welder he had no difficulty in obtaining work.

He also joined the Swedish Metal Workers' Union.

After his emigration to Sweden the Nazi police departments back in Germany identified Wetzel as a public enemy.

They incorrectly believed that he was still in Britain.

In August 1939 Wetzel was the author of the so-called "Gothenburg Resolution" which was critical of the non-aggression pact concluded between Germany and the Soviet Union that month.

This opened Wetzel up to criticism from the leadership of the exiled Communist Party leadership based in Moscow.

Wetzel's "Gothenburg Resolution" insisted that, despite the non-aggression pact, it was still Hitler and his power structure that must be seen as the true enemies of the German working class, rather than the old imperialist powers of Britain and France that were the implicit targets of understandings between Hitler and Stalin.

Walter Ulbricht, already prominent among the exiled German communists in Moscow, issued instructions that German communists in Sweden should "isolate" Wetzel.

Early in 1940 the Security Services in Berlin added his name to the "Sonderfahndungsliste G.B." (usually identified in English language sources as "Hitler's Black Book"), a list of (in the end) 2,820 individuals who would, in the event of a successful German invasion and occupation of Britain, be sought out by commando task forces and arrested as a priority.

The 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union had led to a stark political reconfiguration affecting the various strands of the exiled German communist party.

In 1942 Wetzel relocated to Stockholm.

Wetzel's "Gothenburg Resolution" had become redundant, and by 1943 he was again fully engaged in party work.

Around this time he and Inke separated, remaining on friendly terms.

He became editorial secretary of "Politische Information", a German language party newspaper produced in the Swedish capital.

He also produced a significant number of articles for it, often using one of a succession of pseudonyms, including "Ber Wernau", "Karl Scharf" and "Max Richter".

His activities also came to the attention of the authorities in Germany, and he was formally deprived of his German nationality on 21 October 1944.

Even if subsequent events may have vindicated Wetzel's judgements, incurring the suspicions of the man who later became the first leader of the German Democratic Republic is unlikely to have boosted his career prospects in Germany's Soviet occupation zone after 1945.

The Second World War ended in Europe in May 1945.

The large central area of Germany surrounding Berlin, including Wetzel's Saxon homeland, was now administered as the Soviet occupation zone.

He returned, now moving directly to Berlin, in January 1946, accompanied by his new Swedish wife, Inge: the marriage would prove short-lived.

He was appointed to a senior management position with the press and broadcasting department of the Central Committee of the newly formed Socialist Unity Party ("Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands" / SED).

The contentious launch in April 1946 of the SED had been part of a nation building exercise planned with Moscow support by a team of leading exiled German communists during the war years and implemented during the later 1940s.

In 1947 he became head of the foreign press section, with the title "Second Deputy Head of the Agitation Department" ("2. stellvertretender Leiter der Abteilung Agitation").

In October 1949 the Soviet occupation zone was relaunched as the Soviet sponsored German Democratic Republic (East Germany), a new kind of one-party dictatorship.

Wetzel was removed from his existing duties and sent to study at the "Karl Marx" Party Academy.