Karl Steinhoff
Karl Steinhoff was a Minister-president of the German state of Brandenburg, then part of East Germany, and later served as East Germany's Minister of the Interior.
Born in Herford, Steinhoff studied law from 1910 through 1921 at the Universities of Freiburg, Munich, Königsberg, Berlin, and Münster, earning his doctorate in 1921. In 1921-23 he was active in the Ministry of the Interior and Justice; in 1924 served as Legation Secretary of the Saxon legation in Berlin; in 1925-26 as a government advisor in the administration of Zittau; in 1927-28 as district chief of Zeitz; and later as a vice president in Gumbinnen and vice president in Königsberg.
Politically, he had joined the Social Democratic Party in 1923. Amidst the turmoil of the early 1930s, he was given time off in 1932 and dismissed from government service in 1933. From 1940-45, during World War II, he served as lawyer for a cardboard-box wholesale business in Berlin.
At the end of the war in 1945, he became president of the provincial administration of Brandenburg. He joined the Socialist Unity Party in 1946, and from 1946-49 served as Brandenburg's Minister-President and as a member of its state parliament. From 1949-52 he was East Germany's Minister of the Interior; his dismissal at the end of that time was arranged by Walter Ulbricht.
During that time, he was a member of the German People's Council from 1948–49, and from 1950-54 a member of the Volkskammer. Within the SED, he was a member of the central committee of the SED from 1949-54. He also served as a professor of administrative law at Humboldt University in Berlin from 1949-55.
He received the Fatherland Order of Merit, the honor clip to the Fatherland Order of Merit, and the Order of Karl Marx.
He was the oldest former Minister-President of East Germany. Steinhoff was preceded by Wilhelm Höcker and succeeded by Max Seydewitz.
