Karl Steinhoff

Karl Steinhoff
Steinhoff in 1951
Minister for the Interior
In office 7 October 1949 – 9 May 1952
Minister-President	Otto Grotewohl
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Willi Stoph
Minister-President of Brandenburg[a]
In office 4 July 1945 – 5 December 1949
Deputy	Bernhard Bechler
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Rudolf Jahn
Volkskammer Member of the Volkskammer In office 8 November 1950 – 19 November 1954 Preceded by Constituency established Succeeded by multi-member district
Personal details
Born	Carl Steinhoff (1892-11-24)24 November 1892 Herford, Province of Westphalia, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire (now North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany)
Died	19 July 1981(1981-07-19) (aged 88) Wilhelmshorst, Bezirk Potsdam, East Germany
Political party	Socialist Unity Party (1949–1981)
Other political affiliations	Social Democratic Party (1923–1946)
Alma mater	University of Münster (Dr. jur.)
Occupation	Politician Civil Servant Lawyer
Central institution membership 1949–1950: Candidate member, Politburo of the Central Committee 1949–1954: Full member, Central Committee Other offices held 1949–1950: Member, Provisional Volkskammer 1948–1949: Member, German People's Council 1929–1932: Vice President, East Prussia 1928–1929: Vice President, Regierungsbezirk Gumbinnen 1926–1928: District Administrator, Landkreis Zeitz

Karl Steinhoff (November 24, 1892 – July 19, 1981) was a Minister-president (Ministerpräsident) of the German state (Land) of Brandenburg, then part of East Germany, and later served as East Germany's Minister of the Interior.^[1]

Born in Herford, Steinhoff studied law from 1910 through 1921 at the Universities of Freiburg, Munich, Königsberg, Berlin, and Münster, earning his doctorate in 1921. From 1921 to 1923, he was active in the Ministry of the Interior and Justice; in 1924 served as Legation Secretary (Legationssekretär) of the Saxon legation in Berlin; in 1925-26 as a government advisor (Regierungsrat) in the administration (Amtshauptmannschaft) of Zittau; in 1927–28 as district chief (Landrat) of Zeitz; and later as a vice president (Regierungsvizepräsident) in Gumbinnen and vice president (Vize-Oberpräsident) in Königsberg.

Politically, he had joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 1923. Amidst the turmoil of the early 1930s (see Nazi Germany), he was given time off in 1932 and dismissed from government service in 1933. From 1940 to 1945, during World War II, he served as lawyer for a cardboard-box wholesale business in Berlin.

At the end of the war in 1945, he became president of the provincial administration (Provinzialverwaltung) of Brandenburg. He joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in 1946, and from 1946 to 1949 served as Brandenburg's Minister-President and as a member of its state parliament. From 1949-52 he was East Germany's Minister of the Interior; his dismissal at the end of that time was arranged by Walter Ulbricht.

During that time, he was a member of the German People's Council (Deutscher Volksrat) from 1948–49, and from 1950 to 1954 a member of the Volkskammer. Within the SED, he was a member of the central committee of the SED from 1949-54. He also served as a professor of administrative law at Humboldt University in Berlin from 1949-55.

He received the Fatherland Order of Merit (Vaterländischer Verdienstorden), the honor clip (Ehrenspange) to the Fatherland Order of Merit, and the Order of Karl Marx.

He was the oldest former Minister-President of East Germany. Steinhoff was preceded by Wilhelm Höcker and succeeded by Max Seydewitz.