Commemorative stamp series - Germany / German Democratic Republic 1975 - 10 Pfennig

100th Birthday of Wilhelm Pieck From the series "Meritorious Personalities of the German Workers' Movement", the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications of the German Democratic Republic issues a special postage stamp for Wilhelm Pieck's 100th birthday. No special first-day envelope WILHELM PIECK was born on January 3, 1876, the son of a working-class family in Guben. After completing his apprenticeship as a carpenter, he joined the German Woodworkers Association in 1894 and in 1895 became a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). From 1896 to 1910 he worked as a trade union and party official in Bremen. Among other things, he was a member of the Bremen Parliament and full-time party secretary of the SPD. In 1907/08 he attended the Reichspartei School of the SPD in Berlin. During this time Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and Franz Mehring exerted a significant influence on him. Appointed in 1910 in central functions of the SPD to Berlin, he developed into a leading representative of the German left. Immediately after the beginning of the First World War, he took on the side of Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and Franz Mehring on the fight against the annexation policy of German imperialism and the "Burgfriedenspolitik" of the right-wing extremist leader of social democracy. As a leading member of the Spartacist group, he enthusiastically welcomed the Great Socialist October Revolution and persistently advocated the implementation of its teachings in the revolutionary German labor movement. On the founding convention of the KPD 1918/19 he was elected to the central executive body and belonged to this until the founding of the SED in April 1946 continuously. In the period of the Weimar Republic he was on the side of Ernst Thalmanns one of the leading functionaries of the KPD. He plays a significant role in the development of the KPD to a Marxist-Leninist party. Loyalty to the Soviet Union and Lenin's party were for him always a measure of true internationalist stance. He was a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the KPD and of the Executive Committee of the International Red Aid since its foundation. In 1926, the Central Committee of the KPD transferred to him the leadership of the Berlin-Brandenburg-Lusatia district of the KPD. In 1928 he was elected to the Executive Committee of the Communist International and from 1931 to 1943 he was a member of the Presidential and Political Secretariat of the ECCI. Wilhelm Pieck played a major role alongside Georgi Dimitroff and other international workers' leaders in the preparation and conduct of the 7th World Congress of the Communist International in 1935. At this congress he gave the EKKI activity report and delivered the closing remarks. At the Brussels party conference in 1935 he was elected chairman of the Central Committee of the KPD for the time of the arrest of Ernst Thalmann. After the Brussels party conference he made a comprehensive theoretical and organizational work for the creation of the united front of the working class and the creation of a German Popular Front to overthrow the fascist dictatorship. During the Second World War, as Chairman of the KPD, he took decisive initiatives to found the National Committee for Free Germany. Under his leadership the KPD Central Committee drafted the historic call of June 11, 1945. After 1945 he made a decisive contribution in the struggle for the unification of the KPD and SPD to the SED. Together with Otto Grotewohl he was chairman of the SED at the Unification Party Conference in April 1946. In the collective of the party leadership he had a large share in the enforcement of Leninism in the party and the education of members in the spirit of proletarian internationalism. When the GDR was founded in October 1949, there was no one more worthy than Wilhelm Pieck for the highest representation of this state. He, a son of the people who stood up for the interests of the working people through his decades of struggle, was elected president. It was the highest fulfillment of his life that he was able to actively shape the growth and growth of the GDR in the birthplace of Marx and Engels and to experience the construction of socialism. He made a great contribution to the development and consolidation of German-Soviet friendship and became the first honorary president of the Society for German-Soviet Friendship. On September 7, 1960 Wilhelm Pieck died in Berlin.