1. Horst Sindermann became Chairman of the Council of Ministers in 1973, but in 1976 he became President of the Volkskammer, the only member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany to hold the post.
12 Facts About Horst Sindermann
1. 2.
Horst Sindermann joined the Communist Youth Federation in 1929 and in 1932 became a local functionary in Dresden.
3.
The group was banned by the Nazi regime and in June 1933, Horst Sindermann was arrested and condemned to eight months of imprisonment for illegal political activities.
4.
Horst Sindermann worked as a newspaper editor of the Sachsische Volkszeitung at Dresden and the Volksstimme at Chemnitz from 1945 to 1947.
5.
Horst Sindermann became First party secretary in the Landkreis of Chemnitz and Leipzig.
6.
Horst Sindermann ran afoul of party co-chairman Otto Grotewohl, whom he criticised for being married to a former Nazi functionary, and in June 1949 was censured by the party's controlling commission and was demoted to the Freiheit paper in Halle, where he then became editor-in-chief from 1950 to 1953.
7.
Horst Sindermann was director of agitation and propaganda in the Central Committee from 1954 to 1963.
8.
Horst Sindermann's rise was cut short in October 1976, as party leader Erich Honecker deemed his economic views too liberal.
9.
Stoph returned to the premiership, while Horst Sindermann was demoted to the posts of President of the Volkskammer and deputy chairman of the State Council.
10.
Horst Sindermann was the only Communist to preside over the Volkskammer; the SED had previously reserved the Volkshammer presidency for a top member of a block party to keep up the political fiction that East Germany was governed by a broad-based coalition.
11.
Horst Sindermann remained in these positions until the peaceful revolution, during which he resigned from all offices in November 1989.
12.
Horst Sindermann's grandson is the handball player and fashion designer Eric Sindermann.