deaths
September 7, 1960
Wilhelm Pieck, German carpenter and politician, President of East Germany (born 1873)
Wilhelm Pieck
Friedrich Wilhelm Reinhold Pieck was a German communist politician who served as the chairman of the Socialist Unity Party from 1946 to 1950 and as the only president of the German Democratic Republic from 1949 until his death in 1960.
Lists of political office-holders in East Germany
These are lists of political office-holders in East Germany. The political leadership of East Germany was distributed between several offices. However, until the Volkskammer removed a section in the GDR's constitution guaranteeing their monopoly on political power on 1 December 1989, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) held ultimate power and authority over state and government. Thus, the head of the SED's Politburo of the Central Committee was the de facto leader of the country.