Günter Benser
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Günter Benser (12 January 1931 – 27 March 2025) was a German
Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...
historian. Before
1989 1989 was a turning point in political history with the "Revolutions of 1989" which ended communism in Eastern Bloc of Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin W ...
, he was a senior staff member of the Berlin-based Marxism–Leninism Institute attached to the ruling Socialist Unity Party of (East) Germany, and serving as its director for not quite two and a half eventful years, starting on 21 December 1989.


Life and career

Benser was born into a working-class family in
Heidenau Heidenau is a town in the Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge district, in Saxony, Germany. The town is situated on the left bank of the Elbe, 13 km southeast of Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is ...
, a small manufacturing town which he himself (in 2015) described as a "product of the rapid industrialisation of
Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...
during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries". While he was growing up
amateur dramatics Amateur theatre, also known as amateur dramatics, is theatre performed by amateur actors and singers. Amateur theatre groups may stage plays, revues, musicals, light opera, pantomime or variety shows, and do so for the social activity as well as f ...
and the "Heidenauer Volksbühne" (theatre), which his grandfather had co-founded in 1906, played an important part in the Bensers' family life. He embarked on a management traineeship with Elbtalwerke AG, a local manufacturer, and then began to study History at
Leipzig University Leipzig University (), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...
. He was employed in 1952/53 by the district council in
Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...
. Between 1955 and 1989, he was also employed as a researcher, latterly as a deputy head of department, at the party's Berlin based Marxism–Leninism Institute. He was also a member of the Council for Historical Studies (''"Rat für Geschichtswissenschaft"'') and worked for the National Historians' Committee of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). He received his doctorate from the Marxism–Leninism Institute in 1964 for a dissertation on the Strategy and Tactics of the Marxist German workers' political parties between 1945 and 1949. The Marxism–Leninism Institute in Berlin where Benser worked for more than three decades was tightly regulated till 1971, a period during which according to at least one source
Walter Ulbricht Walter Ernst Paul Ulbricht (; ; 30 June 18931 August 1973) was a German communist politician. Ulbricht played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar republic, Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and later in the early development ...
, the country's leader, appeared to see himself as the nation's top historian. Ulbricht's successor,
Erich Honecker Erich Ernst Paul Honecker (; 25 August 1912 – 29 May 1994) was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. He held the post ...
, took a less hands-on approach to national history, and researchers at the Institute were able to discuss their subject more openly, even though a principal role of the Institute continued to involve de facto censorship of published history to ensure compliance with party doctrine. In this context, following the breach of the Berlin Wall which took place in November 1989 and the flood of high-level resignations that ensued, the Institute found itself leaderless. On 21 December 1989, Günter Benser found himself elected director of the institute by his fellow members, with 298 votes in support, 14 abstentions and one vote against his election, and he duly took over the directorship vacated, after a twenty-year incumbency, by
Günter Heyden Günter Heyden (16 February 1921 – 21 January 2002) was a German professor of philosophy and a sociologist. Between 1969 and 1989 he was the director of the :de:Kaufhaus Jonaß, East Berlin based :de:Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus, Institute f ...
. Twenty-five years later, Benser was still recalling in print his surprise over this turn of events. He retained the directorship until March 1992 when the Institute dissolved itself. Benser was an honorary member of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. On 27 March 2025, Benser died at the age of 94.Karlen Vesper
Ein integrer Mensch.
nd-aktuell.de, 28 March 2025 (in German). Retrieved 29 March 2025.


Awards and honours

* 1966:
Patriotic Order of Merit The Patriotic Order of Merit (German: ''Vaterländischer Verdienstorden'', or VVO) was a national award granted annually in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). It was founded in 1954 and was awarded to individuals and institutions for outstanding ...
* 1978: National Prize of East Germany


Output

During the forty-year existence of the
German Democratic Republic East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...
Benser published numerous articles and compilations concerned with the history of the country's ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (''Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands'' / SED) and of communism more generally. His pre-1989 works were part of East Germany's standard historiography of itself and effectively followed the established party line. After 1989 he distanced himself from his earlier output, and after 1993 he joined other former doyens of the East German academic and intellectual establishment as a member of the Leibniz Society of Sciences. As well as his writings on politics and party matters, Benser chronicled the history of the "Heidenauer Volksbühne" (theatre).


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Benser, Gunter 1931 births 2025 deaths 20th-century German historians German Marxist historians Recipients of the National Prize of East Germany Leipzig University alumni People from Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge