Apel, Erich

Erich Apel was born into a family of a locksmith and a seamstress. After graduating from high school, in 1932-1935 he learned to become a tool maker and a locksmith. In 1935-1937 he worked as a designer and toolmaker at a porcelain factory in Neuhaus am Renweg . In 1937-1939 he studied at an engineering school in Ilmenau , received a diploma in mechanical engineering. In 1939, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and seconded to the Peenemuende training ground , where he worked on the Vau- von Braun V-2 rocket ^[2] . After demobilization, he remained to work there as a production engineer and assistant director of production.

Shortly before the destruction of the test center from the bombs dropped by the British, Apel was seconded to the Linke Hoffmann plant in Breslau . At the request of the factory manufacturing accessories for the Vau-2 missiles, Apel received a deferment from conscription to the front in 1944 and was appointed assistant to the technical director of the factory.

At the end of the war, Apel, a high-class specialist in rocketry, was first sent by the Soviet occupation authorities to Nordhausen and then to the USSR on the island of Gorodomlya on Seliger , now the village of Solnechny , where in 1946-1952 he led the pilot production. Upon his return to Germany, Apel made a dizzying career in the ministries of mechanical engineering and heavy engineering of the GDR. From 1953, he served as deputy minister, and from 1955 to March 1958, he was minister of heavy engineering.

In 1954, Apel was accepted as a candidate for membership in the SED , and in 1957 he became a member of the SED. After the suicide of Gerhart Ziller , who was responsible for economic policy issues in the Politburo of the SED Central Committee, Erich Apel headed the new Economic Commission in February 1958 under the Politburo of the SED Central Committee and was appointed chairman of the economic committee in the People’s Chamber of the GDR in the same year. At the Fifth Congress of the SED in July 1958, Erich Apel was elected a candidate member of the SED Central Committee, and at the 9th plenary session of the Central Committee in July 1960 - a member of the SED Central Committee. In July 1961, Apel was elected as a candidate member of the Political Bureau of the SED Central Committee and secretary of the SED Central Committee. In 1960, Apel defended his doctoral dissertation.

As a member of the Presidium, and later Deputy Chairman of the GDR Council of Ministers and Chairman of the State Planning Commission , Erich Apel in the early 1960s played a decisive role in the implementation of the new economic planning and leadership system he initiated, a kind of socialist market economy . Apel also opposed the one-sided orientation of the economy towards the USSR and for trade relations with the West, promoted the trade policy of choosing partners from an economic rather than ideological point of view. After the dismissal of N. S. Khrushchev in 1964, the economic policy of Apel was criticized by the new USSR leader L. I. Brezhnev .

In September 1965, negotiations held in Moscow with the participation of Ulbricht and Apel regarding the conclusion of a new trade agreement between the USSR and the German Democratic Republic for 1966-1970 came to a standstill: the Soviet side refused to increase the supply of oil and rolled steel, so necessary for the German Democratic Republic, refused to reconsider tariffs disadvantageous for the GDR and required export deliveries in volumes beyond the scope of the GDR. After the breakdown of negotiations, Apel lost support in the leadership of the GDR: his new five-year plan was subjected to devastating criticism at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the SED Central Committee, in addition, Gunther Mittag, Apel's friend and ally in the new economic system, sided with the critics. Difficult negotiations with the USSR on the conclusion of a trade agreement continued in November, the Soviet side in an ultimatum form set the deadline for signing a trade agreement with USSR Minister of Foreign Trade N. S. Patolichev in Berlin - no later than 11:00 on December 3, 1965. An hour before the deadline for signing a new trade agreement, which he strongly opposed, and after an acute conflict with party apparatchik Alfred Neumann, Erich Apel shot himself with service weapons in his office in the Ministerial House on Leipzig Street in Berlin.

The death of the economic reformer of the GDR was overgrown with rumors and speculation: according to other versions, he shot himself at home or became a victim of political murder. The exact motives for Apel's suicide remained unknown. Willy Brandt suggested that Erich Apel committed suicide in protest against the exploitation of the GDR by the USSR. According to another version, Apel feared sanctions at the next meeting of the SED Central Committee. The official report on the death of the chairman of the State Planning Commission said that his death occurred as a result of an acute nervous breakdown amid general overwork. He was buried with state honors at the Socialist Memorial at the Friedrichsfeld Central Cemetery in Lichtenberg .

• Durch sozialistische Rekonstruktion und Erhöhung der Arbeitsproduktivität zur Erfüllung des Siebenjahrplans , Berlin 1959
• Das Chemieprogramm der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. Ein wichtiger Faktor im ökonomischen Wettbewerb zwischen Sozialismus und Kapitalismus , Berlin 1960
• Aktuelle Aufgaben zur Erhöhung der Qualität der Leitung der Volkswirtschaft durch die Verbesserung der komplexen Planung, insbesondere durch die Beachtung der Wechselwirkung zwischen Organization und Technik und die Ausarbeitung der Pläne "Neue Technik Berlin 19"
• Neue Fragen der Planung. Zur Rolle und zu den Aufgaben der zentralen staatlichen Planung im neuen ökonomischen System der Planung und Leitung der Volkswirtschaft , Berlin 1963
• Aktuelle Fragen der ökonomischen Forschung , Berlin 1964
• Wissenschaftliche Führungstätigkeit - neue Rolle der VVB , Berlin 1964
• Ökonomische Gesetze des Sozialismus und neues ökonomisches System der Planung und Leitung der Volkswirtschaft , Berlin 1964
• Planmässige Wirtschaftsführung und ökonomische Hebel , Berlin 1964
• Fragen der Anwendung des neuen ökonomischen Systems der Planung und Leitung der Volkswirtschaft bei der Vorbereitung und Durchführung der Investitionen , Berlin 1965

• Handbuch der Volkskammer , 3. Wahlperiode, 1959
• Handbuch der Volkskammer , 4. Wahlperiode, 1964
• Der Selbstmord Erich Apels . In: Die Rote Fahne. Zentralorgan der Unabhängigen Sozialistischen Einheitspartei Deutschlands (USED) .

• Biography (German)
• Biography (German)
• Berliner Zeitung: Why did Erich Apel go to death? (German)
• Der Spiegel: Shot in the office (German)