Otto Grotewohl - Prime Minister

Prime Minister

With the establishment of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) on 7 October 1949, Grotewohl became the first Ministerpräsident (prime minister), while Wilhem Pieck held the office of the state president. With the creation of the Council of Ministers (Ministerrat) government of the GDR in November 1954, Grotewohl also became the first chairman of the Council, while retaining the title of Ministerpräsident. The actual power holder however was Walter Ulbricht, General Secretary of the governing SED Central Committee from 1950 on.

In a major speech to an SED party conference on 28 March 1956, Grotewohl condemned abuses in the legal system. He denounced illegal arrests, called for more respect for civil rights, and even asked the parliament to develop lively debate. He also made a veiled criticism of Justice Minister Hilde Benjamin's handling of political cases which had been notoriously brutal.

In 1960 he was diagnosed with leukemia, from which he died on 21 September 1964. He was not fully active in his post after 1961, when he began receiving medical treatment in the Soviet Union.

He was awarded the Order of Karl Marx, the GDR's highest decoration, in 1952 and also the Soviet Union's Order of Lenin, the GDR's Order of Merit for the Fatherland in gold and he was a freeman of the city of Dresden. After his death, the Wilhelmstrasse in East Berlin was renamed Otto-Grotewohl-Straße in his honor; the street retained this name until 1991, following German reunification. On 15 April 1986, the present-day Mohrenstraße U-Bahn station in eastern Berlin, then known as the Thälmannplatz station, was also renamed Otto-Grotewohl-Straße. The Third German School in Chapayesky Lane, Moscow, was named Otto Grotewohl School.