Heinz Rauch

Heinz Rauch (23 November 1914 - 19 December 1962) was a German activist and politician (KPD, SED) who fought against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War.

After 1945 he embarked on a career as a party official in what became East Germany. In 1951 he was appointed to a consultancy position with the national statistical office. In February 1957 he took over as head of the East German statistical service, retaining the post till his death in an air crash not quite six years later. His wife Märta and two of the couple's three sons, Kurt and Bernd, were also killed.

Life

Heinz Rauch was born into a working-class family in Schönefeld (Leipzig). His first full-time job, between 1929 and 1932, was as a clerk with the Dresdner Bank. In 1933 he joined the Communist Party in his home city of Leipzig. 1933 was also the year in which the Hitler government took power and lost little time in transforming Germany into a one-party dictatorship: one effect of that was that at around the same time that Rauch joined the party, his membership of it became illegal. In July 1933 he emigrated via Denmark to Sweden, where he remained till 1936. In August 1934, as the result of a highly publicised extradition application, Rauch came into contact with the well-known Swedish lawyer-politician (and son of the former "statsminister" - ''loosely, "prime minister"'' Hjalmar Branting), Georg Branting (1887–1965). A set-back came in November 1934, however, when Rauch was arrested.

Rauch's detention was relatively brief, since during 1935/36 he was working as a toolmaker in Stockholm. In the summer of 1936 he travelled with Rudi Müller to Spain where civil war was breaking out. Their purpose was to participate in the anticipated fighting as members of the communist inspired International Brigades. He fought initially as a member of the 14th Brigade and then with the 11th Brigade. He attended the internationalists' Pozo Rubio officers' training school at Albacete. Subsequently he was badly wounded and appointed to the rank of lieutenant. At around the same time he was accepted for membership of the Spanish Communist Party. In or shortly before 1938 Rauch also undertook an engineering traineeship.

Later in 1938 he returned to Sweden. In 1940 he became a member of the leadership team of the exiled German Communist Party. It was also in 1940 that Heinz Rauch married the Swedish communist, Märta Jansson (1919 – 1962). In July 1940 Rauch was sent by the party to Norway where for several months he engaged in "illegal political work" among German soldiers stationed there. His stay in Norway was cut short, however, following intervention by the Communist Party of Norway which at this point was desperately keen to avoid becoming involved in any confrontation with the German occupation forces. On 5 July 1941, accompanied by Franz Stephany, he was sent back to Norway in order to make contact with the (by this time illegal) Central Committee of the Communist Party in Oslo. They stayed for several days before Rauch slipped quietly across the border back into Sweden. Back in Berlin Heinz Rauch's continuing political involvement during his Swedish exile had not gone unnoticed, and on 2 March 1942 he was formally stripped of his German citizenship. Although Rauch managed to remain below the radar during most of his time in Sweden, there is little doubt that he remained politically active till the war ended. One source points to powerful, albeit circumstantial evidence that the purpose of Rauch's visit to Norway at the start of July 1941 had been to meet up with Asbjørn Sunde and "activate" the sustained sabotage operation that now emerged in occupied Norway. In 1944 Rauch was a delegate to the party conference held in Sweden by the German Communist Party in exile.

Heinz Rauch returned to the