Hans Jendretzky


Hans Jendretzky was a German Communist politician. He was a prominent politician of the Socialist Unity Party in the German Democratic Republic.
He became a member of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1919 and of the Communist Party of Germany in 1920. In the 1920s, he was one of the most prominents members of the KPD, and was head of the Roter Frontkämpferbund in Berlin. He was a member of the Parliament of Prussia from 1928 to 1932. In 1934, he was sentenced to three years of prison, being charged with "conspiracy to commit high treason."
After World War II, he became active in communist politics in the Soviet Occupation Zone, and was president of the Free German Trade Union Federation 1946-1948, First Secretary of the East Berlin SED district from 1948 to 1953. He was a candidate to the politburo from 1950, deputy minister of the Interior from 1957 to 1960, a member of the SED central committee 1957-1989, member of the Volkskammer 1950-1954 and 1958-1989.
Jendretzky famously denounced the Freedom Bell in western Berlin, a gift from Americans as a sign of the fight against communism in Europe, as the "death bell", warning: "The rope of the death bell will become the gallows rope for those who ring it."

Literature