Trade Unions Federation
Ilse Thiele became a member of what organization or association in 1946?
Ilse Thiele Ilse Thiele ( 4 November 1920 – 10 January 2010 ) was an East German politician . She was a member of the powerful Central Committee of the countrys ruling SED ( party ) between 1954 and 1989 . She served as the Chair of the national Democratic Womens League from 1953 till 1989 . Life . Early years . Ilse Neukrantz was born in Berlins central Lichtenberg quarter . Her father was a warehouseman who was later employed in clerical work . Her mother was a milliner . and her brother attended junior and middle school locally . From 1937 till 1945 , she worked as a stenographer by court . Politicised housewife . The war ended in May 1945 and with it came the end of Nazi Germany and of one-party government . Ilse Thiele , now a housewife in Wietze ( near Celle ) , joined the Communist Party . By the next year , she had relocated to the Soviet occupation zone in what remained of Germany . Here , in April 1946 , the contentious merger of the old Communist Party with the Moderate-left SPD paved the way for a return to one-party government , and Thiele was one of the thousands of Communist Party members who quickly took the opportunity to sign their membership over to the new Socialist Unity Party of Germany ( SED / ) . Still working as a stenographer with various employers , in 1946 , she joined the Trade Unions Federation ( FDGP / ) . Between 1948 and 1950 she served as a local councilor with responsibility for social affairs in Berlin-Lichtenberg . Between 1946 and 1952 , she was also a member of the party leadership team in Lichtenberg . In 1950 , she became the Berlin regional secretary for the Democratic Womens League ( , DFD ) . In 1950/51 , she also studied at the Karl Marx Party Academy . Political establishment . In 1953 , Ilse Thiele succeeded Elli Schmidt as national president of the Democratic Womens League , one of several quasi-political mass movements that were a feature of East Germanys Soviet based constitutional structure . Thiele would continue to head up the DFD till November 1989 . The role was an important one : Thieles long tenure contrasted with her predecessors fall from grace , and may have reflected her own ferocious loyalty to the national leadership , especially during the politically nervous early 1950s . At the heart of power . In April 1954 , Thiele became one of the 91 members of the Party Central Committee . The constitutional structure of the German Democratic Republic insisted on the leading role of the party , and central committee membership placed her at the heart of decision making in a system which required government ministers merely to carry out the policy decisions of the party . Thiele remained a Central Committee member for two and a half decades , until the Central Committee itself resigned in November 1989 as part of the run-up to reunification . From 1954 through till March 1990 , Ilse Thiele also sat as a member of the National legislature ( ) . Despite her membership of the ruling SED ( party ) , in the assembly , she represented not the SED but the DFD . Between 1950 and 1986 , the SED always received of the votes cast in general election , but the DFD was one of a number of bloc parties and mass movements that nevertheless received a fixed quota of seats in the . In 1954 , she became a member of the Presidium of the National Front , the organisational alliance of second tier political parties and mass movements used by the SED to manage and , where necessary , control these elements . In 1971 , she joined the national Council of State , remaining a member till January 1990 . Internationally , from 1964 till 1989 , she was a vice-president of the Womens International Democratic Federation , which , during the Cold war years , was widely seen as a left-leaning pro-Soviet confederation . Death . Ilse Thiele died in Berlin early in 2010 , a couple of months after her 89th birthday . Awards and honours . - 1957 : Clara Zetkin Medal - 1965 : Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold - 1985 : Order of Karl Marx