- Karl Steinhoff
Karl Steinhoff (
November 24 ,1892 –July 19 ,1981 ) was aMinister-President ("Ministerpräsident") of the German state ("Land") ofBrandenburg , then part ofEast Germany , and later served as East Germany'sMinister of the Interior .Born in
Herford , Steinhoff studied law from 1910 through 1921 at the Universities ofFreiburg ,Munich ,Königsberg ,Berlin , andMünster , earning his doctorate in 1921. In 1921-23 he was active in the Ministry of the Interior and Justice; in 1924 served as Legation Secretary ("Legationssekretär") of the Saxon legation in Berlin; in 1925-26 as a government advisor ("Regierungsrat") in the administration ("Amtshauptmannschaft") ofZittau ; in 1927-28 as district chief ("Landrat") ofZeitz ; and later as a vice president ("Regierungsvizepräsident") inGumbinnen and vice president ("Vize-Oberpräsident") in Königsberg.Politically, he had joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1923. Amidst the turmoil of the early 1930s (see
Nazi Germany ), he was given time off in 1932 and dismissed from government service in 1933. From 1940-45, duringWorld War II , he served as lawyer for a cardboard-box wholesale business in Berlin.At the end of the war in 1945, he became president of the provincial administration ("Provinzialverwaltung") of Brandenburg. He joined the Socialist Unity Party (SED) in 1946, and from 1946-49 served as Brandenburg's Minister-President and as a member of its state parliament. From 1949-52 he was East Germany's Minister of the Interior; his dismissal at the end of that time was arranged by
Walter Ulbricht .During that time, he was a member of the
German People's Council ("Deutscher Volksrat") from 1948-49, and from 1950-54 a member of the "Volkskammer ". Within the SED, he was a member of the central committee of the SED from 1949-54. He also served as a professor of administrative law atHumboldt University in Berlin from 1949-55.He received the
Fatherland Order of Merit ("Vaterländischer Verdienstorden"), the honor clip ("Ehrenspange") to the Fatherland Order of Merit, and theOrder of Karl Marx .He was the oldest former Minister-President of East Germany. Steinhoff was preceded by
Wilhelm Höcker and succeeded byMax Seydewitz .
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