Ernst Rudolf Johannes Reuter (1889 –1953) was the German
mayor of West Berlin from 1948 to 1953, during the time of the Cold War.
Reuter opposed Kaiser Wilhelm's regime at the start of the
First World War. After getting drafted, Reuter was wounded and captured by
Russians during the Bolshevik Revolution. In captivity, Reuter joined the
Bolsheviks and organized his fellow prisoners into a soviet. In 1917, Lenin
sent him to Saratov in the to-be-established Volga German Autonomous Soviet
Socialist Republic.
Upon his return to Germany, Reuter joined the Communist
Party of Germany (KPD) and was named the First Secretary of its Berlin section.
From 1931 until 1933, Reuter was the mayor of Magdeburg where he fought lack of
housing and jobs due to the economic crisis. He also was elected as a member of
the Reichstag. In 1933, with the Nazis now in power, he was forced to abdicate
his positions and was brought to the concentration camp (KZ) Lichtenburg near
Torgau. After his release, he went into exile in Turkey in 1935 where he stayed
until the end to the Nazi era.
In 1947 he was elected Lord Mayor (Oberbürgermeister) of
Berlin but in the deepening crisis of the Cold War, the Soviet government
withheld their necessary consent. Reuter is most notable for his stance during
the Cold War in Berlin. During the Soviet-imposed Berlin Blockade (1948/49),
the western part of city was sustained by the Berlin airlift.
A few weeks after the uprising of 17 June 1953 in East
Berlin, Reuter died suddenly and unexpectedly from a heart attack in West
Berlin at the age of 64. His funeral was attended by more than 1 million
people.
Reuters was buried with his (Codeba) beret, pictured here on top of his coffin.
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