Wilhelm Pieck

Wilhelm Pieck Wilhelm Richard Pieck
Born	3 January 1876 Guben, Province of Brandenburg, German Empire
Died	7 September 1960 Berlin, German Democratic Republic
Cause of death	Natural causes
Nationality	German
Ideology	Marxism–Leninism Anti-revisionism
Political party	SPD (until 1918) KPD (1918–1946) SED (1946–1960)

Wilhelm Richard Pieck (3 January 1876 – 7 September 1960) was a German communist politician. He was a co-founder of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and served as the first and only President of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1949 until his death in 1960.

Early life

Pieck was born in Guben, Province of Brandenburg, in the German Empire. He trained as a carpenter and joined the German Woodworkers’ Association in 1894. In 1895, he became a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). By 1899, he was active in Bremen politics and later studied at the SPD party school in Berlin under Rosa Luxemburg and Franz Mehring.