Otto Winzer

Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox Minister Otto Winzer (3 April 1902 – 3 March 1975) was an East German diplomat who served as East Germany's Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1965 to 1975.

Biography

Winzer was born in Berlin in 1902.<ref name=dzeit1963>Template:Cite news</ref> He was a son of worker. Otto Winzer learned the typesetter craft.<ref name=dzeit1963/>

In 1919, he became a member of the Communist Party of Germany.<ref name=dzeit1963/> Then he became the head of Communist Youth publication. He was involved in underground activities against Adolf Hitler's regime from 1933 to 1935.<ref name=dzeit1963/> In 1935, Winzer went to the Soviet Union, and he stayed there until the end of World War II. During World War II, he used the code name Lorenz.<ref name=dzeit1963/> He returned from exile in the Soviet Union as part of the Ulbricht Group, charged with setting up the Soviet Military Administration in Germany after World War II in April 1945.<ref>"Die Tätigkeit der "Gruppe Ulbricht" in Berlin von April bis Juni 1945" German Federal Archives. Retrieved 22 November 2011 Template:In lang</ref>

Winzer joined the Socialist Unity Party, the East German communist party, in 1946, and he became a member of its central committee in 1946.<ref name=inopls/> He was named the deputy editor of the party's official paper Neues Deutschland in 1949.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Winzer was Secretary of State from 1949 to 1956 and First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1956 to 1965.<ref name=inopls>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1965 to 1975. He was removed from his post due to ill health<ref name=ppgnyt75>Template:Cite news</ref> and died at age 72 on 3 March 1975.<ref name=ttnews>Template:Cite news</ref>

Awards and decorations

• Patriotic Order of Merit (1955 and 1972)
• Order of Karl Marx (1962)
• Grand Star of People's Friendship (1975)
• Otto-Winzer-Straße in Berlin-Marzahn (1978–1992, now Mehrower Allee)
• Officer College of the National People's Army, for foreign military cadres, in Prora on Rügen was named after him (1981–1990)
• The international school of the East German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in Königs Wusterhausen bore his name