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Heinz Geggel
East German journalist and party functionary (1921–2000) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Heinz Geggel (11 November 1921 – 15 November 2000) was an East German journalist and party functionary of the Socialist Unity Party (SED).
Geggel served as the longtime head of the powerful Central Committee Agitation Department that de facto commanded East German press. He infamously became known as "Dr. Geggels" (in reference to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels) among the journalists he directed and controlled.
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Life and career
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Early life
Heinz Geggel was born on 11 November 1921 in Munich to a Jewish family of merchants. He attended primary and secondary school there from 1928 to 1936. Due to his Jewish heritage, he had to emigrate from Germany after the Nazis rose to power. He initially fled to Switzerland, where he completed an apprenticeship at a commercial school in Neuchâtel. In 1938, he moved to Belgium, studying textile engineering at a technical school in Verviers. When Belgium was invaded by Nazi Germany in May 1940, Geggel was interned in Brussels and forced into labor. He was later moved to internment camps in southern France, including the Gurs internment camp and Camp des Milles. His German citizenship had been revoked in 1940.[1][2]
Geggel was redeemed in August 1941 and stayed in La Ciotat until December of that year,[2] when he fled to Cuba via the neutral Casablanca.[1][2][3] After a few odd jobs in Havana,[2] he was trained as a diamond cutter by Jewish refugees from Antwerp.[1][2] He became active in the German resistance against the Nazis, joining the Confederation of Cuban Workers and leading the Committee of German Antifascists in Cuba.[1][2][4] In 1944, Geggel additionally joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and dealt with the registration of German Nazis living in Cuba.[2]
Journalist in the Soviet occupation zone and East Germany
After the war, he returned to Allied-occupied Germany in November 1947, arriving in Berlin via Frankfurt am Main in February 1948. He became a member of the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) in March 1948 and initially worked as an editor at Funkhaus Grünau. From 1949 to 1956, he was an editor and department head at the East German radio station Berliner Rundfunk. He concurrently attended the SED's "Karl Marx" Party Academy for a one-year course from 1953 to 1954.[2]
In 1957, he was promoted to director of the Deutschlandsender, a radio station aimed at influencing West German listeners, concurrently serving as deputy chairman of its parent,[5] East Germany's State Broadcasting Committee.[2][5][6]
Central Committee apparatus
Geggel moved to the apparatus of the SED Central Committee in 1960 as head of the West Commission's SPD Working Group,[2][3] briefly becoming secretary of the West Commission from 1962.[2] In 1963, he was made deputy head of the Central Committee West Department, which was responsible for influencing West German politics. He was additionally elected to the Central Committee as a candidate member in January 1963 (VI. Party Congress).[2]
Two years later, Geggel succeeded Arne Rehahn as head of the West Department, which by 1965 had become the deciding Central Committee institution responsible for West Germany. Geggel's tenure at the department coincided with the underground work of the illegal SED-controlled West German KPD and its 1968 reestablishment as German Communist Party (DKP). In June 1971 (VIII. Party Congress), he was made a full member of the Central Committee, serving until its collective resignation in December 1989.[2][3]
Agitation Department
In October 1973, he succeeded Hans Modrow, who was moved out of the Central Committee apparatus by Erich Honecker, as head of the Central Committee Agitation Department.[2][7][8][9] From 1971, Geggel was also a board member of the Association of Journalists of the GDR.[2]
As head of the Agitation Department, Geggel's task was to align the East German press with the political line of the SED.[10][11]
Representatives of East German press organs were required to attend so-called "argumentation sessions" (German: Argumentationssitzungen) (Argus), held every Thursday at the Central Committee building, for this purpose.[9][12][13][14][15] Officially meant to provide information, Geggel actually dictated which issues are to be reported on, with what priority and how; often, even detailed wording of headlines and specific phrases were prescribed during these Argus.[9][13][15][16] Due to the atmosphere and his unyielding stance in these sessions, even questioning Geggel being suspect,[13] journalists sometimes referred to him as "Dr. Geggels", in reference to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.[8][13][15][17]
Geggel was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in 1959, 1964 and 1970, the Banner of Labor in 1968, 1971 and 1981, the Order of Karl Marx in 1981 and 1986,[1][2] and the Hero of Labour title in 1984.[1][18]
Peaceful Revolution
Geggel's last Argus was held on 19 October 1989, two days after Erich Honecker was removed from power, the Peaceful Revolution already underway. The new leadership refrained from directly interfering with the press. Geggel acknowledged the negative effects of his department's control over the press but refused to take responsibility, instead blaming the editors-in-chief.[19]
In November 1989, Geggel resigned as department head and went into retirement.[2] He was expelled from Association of Journalists in January 1990 alongside Joachim Herrmann and other high-ranking Agitation Department officials as the people responsible for "abuse of the media".[20] He died in Berlin on 15 November 2000 at the age of 79.[1][2]
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References
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