Wilhelm Kling

Who was Wilhelm Kling?

Wilhelm Kling was a Communist Party of Germany functionary, and later an associate in the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in East Germany.

Kling was born in Bammental in the Grand Duchy of Baden. He completed his training as a salesman in 1916-1921, and was an employee in Dortmund until 1924. He worked for various building companies until 1928, was unemployed until 1929, and was the editor of the newspaper Berlin am Morgen between 1929 and 1933.

From 1922 to 1924, Kling was a member of the Association for Defence against Anti-Semitism in Germany. As of 1923, he was active in various capacities for the KPD in the subdistrict of Dortmund, and later in the subdistrict of Berlin.

From March 1933, after Adolf Hitler and the Nazis had taken power, he was unlawfully engaged in the KPD's information service, which led to his arrest in July 1935. In October 1936, he was sentenced to six years in labour prison in the Volksgerichtshof's last public proceedings. Until 1945, he was imprisoned in, among other places, Plötzensee Prison in Berlin, Brandenburg-Görden and Bayreuth, as well as in Aschendorfer Moor, Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen concentration camps.