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Heinrich George | Helmut Kind | Karl Heinrich | Ewald Ernst | Kurt Müller | Alfred Weiland | Arno Wend | Helmut Brandt | Georg Dertinger | Max Fechner | Karl Wilhelm Fricke | Wolfgang Harich | Walter Janka | Walter Linse | Paul Merker | Sigrid Paul | Rudolf Bahro | Heinz Brandt | Jürgen Fuchs | Gerulf Pannach | Michael Sallmann | Hans-Joachim Helwig-Wilson | Bärbel Bohley | Freya Klier | Stephan Krawczyk | Vera Lengsfeld | Ulrike Poppe
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 Wolfgang Harich was one of the best-known spokesmen of the reform communism in the GDR. Born in 1923 in Königsberg, he spent his school years in Neuruppin and Berlin. He escaped the military service by desertion in 1944. At the same time he joined an underground resistance group in Berlin. After the end of World War II, he became a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), which in 1946 became the Socialist Unity Party (SED). He studied at the Berlin University; in 1951 he graduated with a doctorate in philosophy. He then worked as a professor and lecturer for Aufbau-Verlag. He also directed, co-founded and edited the "German Journal of Philosophy". toHis first confrontation with the SED party leadership came about in 1952 due to philosophical questions. After the uprising on June17th, 1953, Harich openly criticized the dogmatic cultural and media policy of the SED. In the brief "thaw" after the Twentieth Congress of the Communist party of Soviet Union (February 1956) he developed, together with other like-minded individuals, approaches to reform the socialist system. He conceptualizedonceived a "platform for a special German path to socialism,", which provided for a democratization of the GDR and the "peaceful reunification" in the autumn of 1956. After he made contact with the SPD and its East Bureau, Harich was arrested in the end of November 1956 - after the crushing of the Hungarian uprising - and was taken to the so-called U-boat in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. Because of his willingness to cooperate, he was able to continue his literary and philosophical studies. Although he openly showed remorse, he was sentenced to ten years in prison by the Supreme Court of the GDR in March 1957 for "forming a counterrevolutionary group”. In 1964 he was pardoned and allowed to leave the special prison Bautzen II. In the following years, he turned primarily to environmental issues. In 1979, he was allowed to move to the Federal Republic, where he was active in the Green Party, but disappointedly returned to the GDR in 1981. In 1992 he chaired and founded the "Alternative Study Commission on German Contemporary History. In 1994 he joined the PDS and disassociated himself with the left side of the party. Harich died in Berlin in 1995. |
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