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Walter Weidauer (28 July 1899 – 13 March 1986) was a German politician. He was the "lord mayor" ( Oberbürgermeister) of Dresden during the most intensive period of the city's rebuilding, between 1946 and 1958.
Weidauer's political approach was appropriate to the times. He justified his newly acquired power on the grounds that he possessed "proper political convictions" „anständige politische Gesinnung“ while condemning political opponents as reactionaries. The German Democratic Republic would be founded formally only in October 1949, but already the basis for a return to One-party state government had created in April 1946, under Soviet administration, with the contentious merger between the old Communist Party and the Moderate-left SPD. Walter Weidauer was one of thousands of Communist Party members who promptly signed his membership across to the new SED (party) which would become the young country's ruling party under its ever more overtly Soviet style constitution.
At a City Council meeting on 10 October 1946 Walter Weidauer was elected Lord Mayor ( Oberbürgermeister) of Dresden in succession to Gustav Leißner after the SED councilors had taken the meeting by surprise and withdrawn their support from Leißner. The new mayors most pressing priorities covered matters on which he had already been working such as police and personnel decisions along with rebuilding the city. In October 1947 a de-Nazification Commission was also established, over which Weidauer presided in person. He would be re-elected Lord Mayor and confirmed in office by the Party Central Committee in 1950, 1953 and 1957, resigning eventually in 1958 (possibly on health grounds).
High on the agenda during his early years in office was the ongoing clearance of wreckage and the rebuilding of the city. He had already, in January 1946, produced a paper entitled "1946, the first year of the great rebuilding" in which he set out a proposed political framework. There was a lively debate on the "rebuild or new build?" question. Weidauer himself was a proponent of "new build", and had no time for architectural treasures or the care of old memorials. He conducted a vigorous and long-running public argument with the Dresden art historian and conservationist on the issues involved. Nearly sixty years later Weidauer was still identified in an opinionated press report on the rebuilding of the Frauenkirche as a "concrete-headed communist".
Despite his own well known reservations about the nature and extent of Dresden's cultural and artistic heritage, Weidauer was the president of the government delegation that arranged for the recovery from the Soviet Union of Dresden's Old Masters' Gallery's artistic treasures (which had been placed in safe storage during World War II, but then confiscated by the Red Army in 1945). In connection with this he traveled to Moscow in August 1955 as part of a high-profile East German government delegation. Sustaining international contacts on behalf of his country's ruling party was important to Weidauer, who also visited West Germany as a representative of the Socialist "New Germany".
On 3 December 1958, with the agreement of the city council, Walter Weidauer resigned as mayor. He had already, on 29 November, accepted an alternative appointment as Dresden District Council Chairman in succession to Rudolf Jahn. However, on 21 January 1961 Weidauer was released from this office as well, on account of serious illness. This marked his retirement, although in the event he would continue to be politically active in less full-time capacities for many years. He remained a member of the Dresden city council till 1967. He also retained his position in the Dresden Party Leadership and district head of the AntiFascist Resistance fighters.
During 1948/49 Weidauer was a member of the German People's Council and then, until its abolition, of the (provisional) Chamber of States ( Länderkammer), a legislative chamber secondary in status and function to the more prominent People's Chamber ( Volkskammer): the Länderkammer had already been largely sidelined some years before its formal abolition in 1958.
In July 1989 Dresden's City Hall Square was renamed "Walter Weidauer Square". 1989 and 1990 were years of Die Wende, however, and on 1 October 1990, a couple of days ahead of formal reunification, the Square reverted to its former name.
Oberbürgermeister
In October 1945 Johannes Müller ceased to be Lord Mayor of Dresden, following a speech in which he had mentioned the difficulties of pursuing the rebuilding of Dresden while having to work in collaboration with the Soviet army
administrators. He was succeeded by Gustav Leißner who held the office for just over a year. At a time when mayoral responsibilities were focused on food and shelter, Leißner was an energetic administrator who tried to stand aside from the political parties, but this involved working with the major parties from both sides of the political spectrum, including the "bourgeois" parties, the CDU and the LDPD. The "bourgeois" parties appreciated a bipartisan approach, which nevertheless ran counter to the increasingly Ulbricht Group of the new Soviet sponsored SED.
Power beyond the city limits
Beyond his responsibilities in the city itself, Weidauer also sat as a member of the regional legislative assembly for Saxony, where he chaired the "Communities Committee" from 1946 till 1952 when the regional assemblies and the regional tier of government were abolished in the German Democratic Republic: this was part of a process of concentrating power within The Party that had been under way since before the country's foundation three years earlier. Naturally he was also a member of the city and regional party leaderships. In addition, during the late 1940s and early 1950s Weidauer was a member of various community organisations and associations, propagating new theories of community politics, above all in opposition to the more parliamentary approach favoured by the despised "bourgeois parties". However, following the foundation of the state in 1949, the abolition of the regional tier of government in 1952, and the taming of the "bourgeois parties", community politics became ever less important.
Retirement and death
After his retirement from full-time politics Walter Weidauer turned to historical research, focusing in particular on the destruction of the city in February 1945.Walter Weidauer, Inferno Dresden, Berlin, 1966 He also found himself compelled to ideological confrontation of the "toxic role of German imperialism".
Awards and honours (not a complete list)
Walter Weidauer died in Dresden on 13 March 1986, aged 86.
Publications (not necessarily a complete list)
Categories: 1899 Births, 1986 Deaths, People From Erzgebirgskreis, Politicians From The Kingdom Of Saxony, Independent Social Democratic Party Politicians, Communist Party Of Germany Politicians, Socialist Unity Party Of Germany Politicians, Members Of The Reichstag Of The Weimar Republic, Members Of The Chamber Of States, Members Of The Landtag Of Saxony, Mayors Of Dresden, Exiles From Nazi Germany, Communists In The German Resistance, Recipients Of The Patriotic Order Of Merit, Recipients Of The Star Of Peoples' Friendship
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