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Paul Merker (1 February 1894 – 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). [1]
Paul Merker war ein deutscher Politiker und Funktionär der KPD und der SED.
The first section (“The Judgement and Legal Rehabilitation of Paul Merker”) analyses the sentencing and rehabilitation of Merker, which have often been held to have centred around Jewish thematics, answering accusations of antisemitism.
The use of the phrase 'den Kellner Paul Merker', or 'the waiter Paul Merker', refers to Merker's youthful occupation as a waiter in restaurants and hotels. Its use in the indictment of this prominent member of the Central Committee was intended here as a term of abuse and degradation.
Merker as the symbol for antisemitism in the GDR can equally be found in popular discourse from memorial and museal portrayals to main- stream media accounts.
At the core of this history lies the case of Paul Merker.4 The Merker case is as important for understanding the Jewish question in East Germany as the Dreyfus Affair was for pre-first world war France. Yet, while the Dreyfus Affair long ago entered into the master narratives of European history, the Merker case has
Paul Merker, Politburo member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Socialist Unity Party (SED) was the highest-ranking East German Communist politician to fell victim of the Stalinist repression in the 1950s in the GDR.
