Karl Maron

{{Infobox officeholder

| image = Bundesarchiv Bild 183-52112-0001, Karl Maron (cropped).jpg

| imagesize =

| office1 = Minister of the Interior of the German Democratic Republic

| primeminister =

| predecessor1 = Willi Stoph

| successor1 = Friedrich Dickel

| term_start1 = 1 July 1955

| term_end1 = 14 November 1963

| office2 = Member of the Volkskammer

| term_start2 = 1958

| term_end2 = 1967

| birth_date = {{birth date|1903|04|27|df=y}}

| birth_place = Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire

| death_date = {{death date and age|1975|02|02|1903|11|14|df=y}}

| death_place = East Berlin, German Democratic Republic

| resting_place = Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde, Berlin

| party = {{ubl|Socialist Unity Party of Germany (1946-) | Communist Party of Germany (1926-1946)}}

| alma_mater =

| spouse =

| nationality = German

| children =

}}

Karl Maron (1903–1975) was a German politician, who served as the interior minister of East Germany. He also assumed different posts in East Germany's government.

Early life and education

Maron was born in Berlin on 27 April 1903 and was educated in Russia.{{cite web|title=Karl Maron|url=http://www.ddr-wissen.de/wiki/ddr.pl?Karl_Maron|publisher=DDR Lexicon|access-date=23 February 2022|language=de}}

Career

Maron was a metal worker.{{cite book|author=Caroline Schaumann|title=Memory Matters: Generational Responses to Germany's Nazi Past in Recent Women's Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=csXmmm7Y3YUC&pg=PA255|year=2008|publisher=Walter de Gruyter

|isbn=978-3-11-020659-3|page=255|location=Berlin}} In 1926, he joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). During the Nazi regime, he left Germany in 1934 for Denmark and then settled in Russia.{{cite news|title=In Berlin zone

|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=0M8pAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AAAEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3335,2015119&dq=karl+maron&hl=en|access-date=28 April 2013

|newspaper=Toledo Blade|date=8 December 1948}} He returned to Berlin under the protection of a Russian general a few days after the Red Army captured the city in 1945. Following his return he became deputy lord mayor of Berlin and the chief of police.{{cite news|title=Berlin and London think Hitler alive

|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=jPE6AAAAIBAJ&sjid=fyoMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1789,11592915&dq=karl+maron&hl=en|access-date=28 April 2013

|newspaper=Toronto Daily Star|date=8 September 1945}}{{cite journal|author=Maoz Azaryahu|title=The politics of commemorative street renaming: Berlin 1945-1948|journal=Journal of Historical Geography|date=October 2011|volume=37|issue=4

|doi=10.1016/j.jhg.2011.06.001|page=485}} As a deputy mayor one of his significant tasks was to rename the streets of Berlin. In 1946, he joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED).{{cite web|title=1 July 1961

|url=http://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/index.php/de/Start/Index/id/1081491|work=Chronik der Mauer|access-date=28 April 2013}} From 1946 to 1950 he was the chief editor of daily Neues Deutschland, which was founded in 1946 by the SED. He was also the director of Berlin municipality's economy department at the end of the 1940s.{{cite news|title=Reds take complete control of Berlin city hall|newspaper=The Day|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=nx8iAAAAIBAJ&sjid=tHEFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1454,5612636&dq=karl+maron&hl=en|date=1 December 1948|access-date=28 April 2013}}

He became the chief of the German people’s police or more commonly Volkspolizei in June 1950 when former chief Kurt Fischer died.{{cite journal|author=Richard Bessel|author-link=Richard Bessel|title=Policing in East Germany in the wake of the Second World

|journal=Crime, History & Societies|year=2003|volume=7|jstor=42708536|issue=2|pages=5–21|doi=10.4000/chs.539|doi-access=free}} In February 1953, he publicly argued "the Volkspolizei can never be neutral or unpolitical." In 1954, he was named as the member of SED's central committee. During his tenure as the chief of Volkspolizei he also assumed the role of deputy interior minister.{{cite journal|author=Josie McLellan|title=State Socialist Bodies: East German Nudism from Ban to Boom|journal=The Journal of Modern History|date=March 2007|volume=79|pages=48–79|doi=10.1086/517544|s2cid=144281349}}

Maron was appointed interior minister on 1 July 1955, replacing Willi Stoph in the post.{{cite book|author=Deirdre Byrnes|year=2011

|location=Oxford|title=Rereading Monika Maron: Text, Counter-text and Context|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KBJWy1Q91LQC&pg=PA138

|publisher=Peter Lang|isbn=978-3-03911-422-1|page=138}} In this position he was promoted in 1962 to Generaloberst. In 1961, he became a member of the working group formed by the Politburo to develop ways to end refugee flow from East Germany.{{cite book

|author=Hope M. Harrison|title=Driving the Soviets up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953-1961|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VINqoT4DHcIC&pg=PA194|year=2011|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-1-4008-4072-4|page=194|location=Princeton; London}} The other members of the group were then security chief Erich Honecker and Stasi chief Erich Mielke. Maron's tenure as interior minister ended on 14 November 1963.{{cite journal|author=Catherine Epstein|title=The Production of "Official Memory" in East Germany: Old Communists and the Dilemmas of Memoir-Writing|journal=Central European History|volume=32|issue=2|year=1999|page=183

|doi=10.1017/s0008938900020896}} He was succeeded by Friedrich Dickel as interior minister.{{cite journal|author=Hans-Hermann Hertle|title=The Fall of the Wall: The Unintended Self-Dissolution of East Germany's Ruling Regime|journal=Cold War International History Project Bulletin|date=Winter–Spring 2001|url=http://www.zzf-pdm.de/Portals/images/mitarbeiter/2009_04_08_CWIHP_Bulletin_12_Hertle_Fall_Wall.pdf

|issue=12–13|pages=1–31|url-status=dead|archive-date=24 December 2012|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121224191825/http://www.zzf-pdm.de/Portals/images/mitarbeiter/2009_04_08_CWIHP_Bulletin_12_Hertle_Fall_Wall.pdf}} From 1958 to 1967 he served as the representative of Volkskammer. In 1964, Maron founded the Institute for Demoscopy (Institut für Meinungsforschung in German) that was a demoscopic research body sponsored by the SED.{{cite book|editor1=Patrick Major|editor2=Johnathan Osmond|title=The Workers' and Peasants' State: Communism and Society in East Germany Under Ulbricht, 1945-71|page=7|location=Manchester|chapter=Introduction|author=Patrick Major|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uOm6CTDBV1oC&pg=PA7|year=2002|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-0-7190-6289-6}}

Personal life and death

Maron was the step-father of author Monika Maron.{{cite news|author=Ulf Zimmermann|title=Monika Maron. Geburtsort Berlin|url=http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Monika+Maron.+Geburtsort+Berlin.-a0128252875|access-date=28 April 2013|newspaper=World Literature Today|date=1 January 2005}} Karl Maron married her mother in 1955.{{cite book|author=Deirdre Byrnes|title=Rereading Monika Maron

|year=2011|publisher=BI50|location=Oxford|isbn=978-3-0353-0056-7|url=http://www.peterlang.com/download/extract/50379/extract_11422.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303213349/http://www.peterlang.com/download/extract/50379/extract_11422.pdf|archive-date=3 March 2016|url-status=dead}} He died in 1975.{{cite journal|author=Donna Harsch|title=Echoes of Silence: The Politics of Generational Memory in East Germany's Literary Intelligentsia|journal=German History|volume=41|issue=2|date=June 2023|doi=10.1093/gerhis/ghad016|page=249}}

Legacy

A street in East Berlin was named after him, Karl-Maron-Straße, in the 1970s and 1980s.{{cite book|author1=Jani Vuolteenaho|author2=Guy Puzey|editor1=Reuben Rose-Redwood|editor2=Derek Alderman|editor3=Maoz Azaryahu|title=The Political Life of Urban Streetscapes: Naming, Politics, and Place|year=2018|doi=10.4324/9781315554464|chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315554464|chapter='Armed with an Encyclopedia and an Axe': The socialist and post-socialist street toponymy of East Berlin revisited through Gramsci|publisher=Routledge|location=London

|isbn=9780367667733|url=https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/618868/1/Street%20names%20politics%20FIN.pdf }}