House of Wilhelm Piecek from childhood with a commemorative plaque on the facade

Historical Monuments

Description

This small, one-story residential building at Różana Str. 5 (formerly Ger. Breiter Steig, and later Wilhelma Pieck Str.) was the first place of residence for Wilhelm Pieck - an important political and social activist for the German Democratic Republic from Guben. The house was made of plastered brick and finished in a neoclassical style. The building originally had four, not the current two double windows on the first floor. In 1960, a bronze plaque was placed on the front facade with the inscription "In this house, an outstanding activist of the international German labor movement, the president of the German Democratic Republic, Wilhelm Pieck, spent his childhood".

Historical background

The house at today's Różaniej Street was the home of the first years of Wilhelm Pieck's childhood (03.01.1876 - 07.09.1960), in which, after the death of his mother (two years after his birth), he lived with his two siblings, his father and stepmother. Wilhelm, whose father Friedrich was a coachman and mother was a washerwoman, was brought up in a conservative, Catholic environment. At the end of the 19th century, after completing his training as a carpenter, he had his first contact with the workers' movement, which prompted him to join the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD, German Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) in 1895, in which he was secretary and member of the city council in Bremen, and later secretary of the central training committee of the SPD and the party school in Berlin. His career in this party was restricted due to his pacifist views. After World War I, he was one of the founders of the Communist Party of Germany (KPN, German Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands). Together with Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, he was arrested for taking part in the Spartacus uprising - he was the only one who managed to escape and thus avoid death at the hands of the Freikorps. Until 1932 he was an active KPN activist in Germany, then until 1945 he was active in the KPN and the Communist International in exile. From 1949 until his death, he was the president of the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

In the years 1961-1990, the name of his hometown of Guben was changed to Wilhelm-Pieck-Stadt Guben.

From 1962 to 1993, a museum devoted to the life and activities of Wilhelm Pieck operated in the house at Różana Str.