Gustav Just

Gustav Just (born June 16, 1921 in Reinowitz, Bohemia) was First Secretary of the (East) German Writers' Union and editor-in-chief of the East German weekly "Sonntag" until 1957, when he was sentenced to four years imprisonment after a show trial in which he was accused of having engaged in anti-constitutional activities ("inciting to boycott") along with Walter Janka, Heinz Zöger, and Richard Wolf.

After his release he became a prolific translator of primarily Czech but also Slovak works into German and was "rehabilitated" in 1990.

He served in the Brandenburg State Parliament (as its "Alterspräsident", or "chairman by seniority") in the newly-unified Germany until he was forced to resign in 1992 following allegations of having participated in wartime atrocities on the Eastern Front during World War II.

Publications:

*"Zeuge in eigener Sache: Die fünfziger Jahre in der DDR", Berlin: Luchterhand, Morgenbuch, 1990.
*"Witness in His Own Cause: The Fifties in the German Democratic Republic", Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1995.
*"Deutsch, Jahrgang 1921: ein Lebensbericht", Potsdam: Verlag für Berlin und Brandenburg, 2001.