Paul Merker

Paul Merker
Paul Merker (1949)
Born	1 February 1894 , Germany
Died	13 May 1969 Eichwalde, East Germany
Nationality	German
Occupation	Politician, political activist and communist party official

Paul Merker (born 1 February 1894: died Eichwalde 13 May 1969) was an activist member of Germany's Communist Party (KPD / Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands) who later became a politician and a top official of East Germany's ruling SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany/Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands).

Merker featured for several years in the show trial culture of the time, placed under a lengthy investigation process that formally began in 1950, and jailed for eight years as a spy in 1955. Released less than a year later, he appeared as a reluctant witness against his friend Walter Janka at another show trial in 1957.

Paul Merker was born near Meissen in Kingdom of Saxony, in what was then the stand-alone municipality of Oberlößnitz on 1 February 1894. In 1934, however, Oberlößnitz was subsumed into Radebeul. Born into a Protestant family, after leaving school Merker worked as a waiter and as a hotel worker. He was still working as a wine waiter, by now in Hamburg, in 1923.

He was a member of a from 1912 till 1918, before joining a "Free" (i.e. more expressly socialist) trades union from 1919. Between 1914 and 1918 he was stationed a soldier at Sandhofen (Mannheim) and then in the air-ship section at Yambol (in Bulgaria), where the Germans maintained an air-ship base for surveillance and with a view to bombing targets in Russia, Rumania and Sudan. While serving in the military Merker was arrested and imprisoned for six months for distributing (presumably subversive) leaflets.

In 1918 he joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USDP / Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands), and in 1920 he joined the Communist Party (KPD / Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands). Till 1922 he worked as a trades union official.