Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F003810-0001, Frankfurt-Main, Evang

Otto Nuschke (23 February 1883 – 27 December 1957) was a German

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

. Nuschke was born in Frohburg in the

Kingdom of Saxony The Kingdom of Saxony (german: Königreich Sachsen), lasting from 1806 to 1918, was an independent member of a number of historical confederacies in Napoleonic through post-Napoleonic Germany. The kingdom was formed from the Electorate of Saxon ...

. In 1910 he was elected General Secretary of the liberal Progressive People's Party (''Fortschrittliche Volkspartei'') of

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...

. In the same year he became chief editor of the Berliner Tageblatt and in 1915 co-editor of the ''Berliner Volkszeitung''. Nuschke soon joined the Liberal Union (Freisinnige Vereinigung), left-wing liberal organisation, and became its general secretary of

in 1906. As this group fused with other left-liberal organisations (in 1910) to form the Progressive People's Party, Nuschke became the general secretary of the new party in

. In 1918 he took part in establishing the German Democratic Party. In 1919 he was a delegate to the National Congress of

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...

and from 1921 to 1933 he was a member of the Reichstag. In 1920s Nuschke was at times the deputy chairman of the German Democratic Party. Nuschke was one of the founders of the republican

Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold The (, ''"Black, Red, ndGold Banner of the Reich"'') was an organization in Germany during the Weimar Republic, formed by members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the German Centre Party, and the (liberal) German Democratic Par ...

and became the general secretary of the

German State Party The German State Party (german: Deutsche Staatspartei or DStP) was a short-lived German political party of the Weimar Republic, formed by the merger of the German Democratic Party (Deutsche Demokratische Partei, DDP) with the People's National Rei ...

in 1931 (i.e. a successor to the German Democratic Party). After the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

gained power in 1933 Nuschke joined the opposition. After the 1944 assassination attempt on

Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...

's life, he went into hiding. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he became involved in the politics of the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ)--what became

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

. Unlike most of the former German Democratic Party members, Nuschke did not take part in forming the

LDPD The Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (german: Liberal-Demokratische Partei Deutschlands, LDPD) was a political party in East Germany. Like the other allied bloc parties of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in the National Front, it ...

/ FDP, but became one of the co-founders of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in June 1945, along with

Ferdinand Friedensburg Ferdinand Friedensburg (17 November 1886 in Schweidnitz (present-day Świdnica) – 11 March 1972) was the interim Mayor of Berlin due to the illness of mayor Louise Schroeder during the Berlin Blockade in 1948. Biography The son of a judge gra ...

, Ernst Lemmer and Walther Schreiber. In 1946 Nuschke was elected in the party's executive committee. From 1946 to 1952 he was a member of the Landtag of Brandenburg. In 1947, after the deposition of party chairmen Jakob Kaiser and Ernst Lemmer by the Soviet military authorities, Nuschke became acting chairman and after the party congress of 1948, party chairman. In March 1948, Nuschke - alongside Wilhelm Pieck (SED) and

Wilhelm Külz Wilhelm Külz (18 February 1875 – 10 April 1948) was a German liberal politician of the National Liberal Party, the German Democratic Party (DDP) and later the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (LDPD). He held public office both in the Germ ...

(

) - was chairman of the

German People's Council The German People's Council (german: Deutscher Volksrat) was a consultative body in the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany that operated in 1948-1949. The main task of the People’s Council was to draw up a constitution on the basis of a draft prese ...

(''Deutscher Volksrat'') that drafted the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

of the

German Democratic Republic German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

. In 1949 Nuschke became a member of the Provisional People's Chamber of the GDR. He remained a member of parliament until his death. After the formal establishment of the German Democratic Republic, Nuschke became Deputy Prime Minister and chief of the Church Office. Nuschke was a loyal supporter of the SED regime, and gradually pushed out those CDU members not willing to do the Communists' bidding. This culminated in the party's 1952 conference, at which the CDU formally declared itself a socialist party. On 17 June 1953, during the East German uprising, Nuschke and his driver were kidnapped and brought to

West Berlin West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...

. Some American military recognised him and saved him from the angry masses. He and his driver were brought to a police station, but released on 19 June. After that Nuschke and his driver returned to

East Berlin East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...

. In a spontaneous interview given to RIAS reporter Peter Schultze, Nuschke claimed that the East German government had popular support and that the demonstrators included West Berliners. In 1954 he received the Patriotic Order of the GDR and in 1955 he received an honorary degree.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nuschke, Otto 1883 births 1957 deaths People from Leipzig (district) People from the Kingdom of Saxony German Lutherans National-Social Association politicians Free-minded Union politicians Progressive People's Party (Germany) politicians German Democratic Party politicians Christian Democratic Union (East Germany) politicians Government ministers of East Germany Members of the Weimar National Assembly Members of the Provisional Volkskammer Members of the 1st Volkskammer Members of the 2nd Volkskammer Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold members German Peace Society members Lutheran pacifists Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit 20th-century Lutherans

See also

References

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