The Philosopher's Show Trial - Humboldt-Universität
Behind the marble Humboldt brothers at Unter den Linden 6, philosophy professor Wolfgang Harich drafted a reform platform that called for Walter Ulbricht's removal. The Stasi arrested him on 29 November 1956, and a show trial handed him ten years in prison.
Sobre este lugar
The main building of the Humboldt University, built between 1748 and 1753 as the palace of Prince Heinrich and home to the university since 1810, hides one of the GDR's most notorious political cases. In the autumn of 1956, the young philosophy professor Wolfgang Harich, co-editor of the Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie and chief editor of the Aufbau publishing house, drafted a Platform for a Special German Path to Socialism with a circle of friends. It demanded free elections, a legal opposition, the dissolution of the Stasi, the removal of party chief Walter Ulbricht, and a neutral, reunified Germany. Harich handed it to Soviet ambassador Georgy Pushkin and discussed it with Der Spiegel publisher Rudolf Augstein. On 29 November 1956 the Stasi arrested him; Aufbau director Walter Janka followed a week later. Harich confessed and testified against his friends. On 9 March 1957 the Supreme Court of the GDR sentenced him to ten years for forming a conspiratorial, state hostile group, with Bernhard Steinberger getting four years and Manfred Hertwig two. Janka received five years in July 1957. Harich spent most of his sentence in solitary confinement in Bautzen until an amnesty in December 1964. The same court annulled the verdicts on 30 March 1990. Inside the foyer, Marx's golden words that philosophers should change the world still look down on the staircase.
Datos clave
- 10 years in prison — The sentence the Supreme Court of the GDR handed Wolfgang Harich on 9 March 1957 for forming a conspiratorial, state hostile group. He served nearly eight years, most of them in solitary confinement in Bautzen.
- 1956 year — On 29 November the Stasi arrested Harich, days after Soviet tanks crushed the Hungarian uprising. Aufbau director Walter Janka was taken on 6 December and later sentenced to five years.
- 33 years — The time it took before the same Supreme Court annulled its own verdict on 30 March 1990, as the GDR collapsed. Harich died in Berlin in 1995.
📍 Unter den Linden 6, 10117, Berlin