Kurt Vieweg

Kurt Vieweg (born 29 October 1911 in Göttingen – died 2 December 1976 in Greifswald) was one of the leading agricultural politicians in the early years of the GDR.

He was at various times Secretary General of the VdgB (the Peasants Mutual Aid Association), deputy in the parliament (the Volkskammer) and a member of the Central Committee of the SED.

This group published the magazine "Bauernbriefe" (Farmers' Letters), for which Vieweg wrote articles under the pseudonym "Oswald".

Since Vieweg could prove his guest studentship in Copenhagen to have been successful, from 1944 he was able to resume his studies at the Ultuna Agricultural University in Uppsala as part of a Swedish aid program for Scandinavian Hitler refugees.

During his stay in Sweden, he was greatly influenced by the agricultural policies of the Swedish Social Democratic Party program.

This influence was shown in his policy statement, published in 1944, "The farmers and the upcoming democratic republic" in which he called for the creation of cooperatives, but also spoke out in favour of maintaining the capitalist mode of production.

He was initially secretary of the Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee in Copenhagen and was later taken on as an employee at the Danish Ministry of Social Affairs.

In mid-August 1947, not least because of his professional qualifications, Vieweg was entrusted by party decision with the post of Secretary General of the VdgB, succeeding Anton Jadasch.

Vieweg now became very active and lectured at various universities about his agricultural policy ideas in which, among other things, he repeatedly defended the family farm.

In this role, Vieweg designed, within the framework of the existing Soviet policy on Germany, several agricultural programmes, including some for the whole of Germany, influenced by German and Scandinavian social democratic programmes, but also using ideas from the Reichsnährstand, the agricultural regulatory body from the Nazi period.

He received his doctorate in 1955 at the Humboldt University of Berlin and was appointed professor of the German Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

As editor along with Otto Rosenkranz of the multi-volume reference work "Handbook for cooperative farmers" in the same year he received the National Prize of the GDR.

This claim, and the creation of internal party brochures that were strongly influenced by his study trip to Sweden and Denmark in November 1955 and were met with little enthusiasm by many high SED functionaries, did not work to his advantage.

During the 30th Central Committee plenum on 30 January 1957 this programme was denounced by Walter Ulbricht as "restoration of capitalism in agriculture".

In October 1959, the Supreme Court of the GDR convicted Kurt Vieweg of "treason" and sentenced him to twelve years in prison, along with forfeiture of all titles and claims.