About Wilhelm Pieck
Friedrich Wilhelm Reinhold Pieck (German pronunciation: [ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈpiːk]; 3 January 1876 – 7 September 1960) was a German communist politician who served as the co-chairman of the Socialist Unity Party from 1946 to 1950 and as the only president of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1949 until his death in 1960. Pieck had been active in the SPD since the 1890s, breaking from the party in 1917 over his opposition to the First World War. He co-founded the Spartacus League and the KPD, rising to become chairman of the latter organization following the imprisonment of Ernst Thälmann and John Schehr by the Nazis. After the end of the Second World War, he played a key role in the 1946 merger of the KPD and SPD into the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, which served as the ruling party of East Germany from 1949 until 1989. Upon his return to Berlin in 1918, Pieck joined the newly founded Communist Party of Germany (KPD).
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