Gymnasium (school)
Horst Salomon was born in Pillkallen, then a small market town in East Prussia still recovering from the destruction of the First World War. His father was an agricultural worker. He nevertheless attended the Gymnasium (school) in Allenstein. When the war ended in May 1945, Salomon, by now aged 16, was one of the millions required to relocate, and he ended up in Thüringia, by now in the Soviet occupation zone, and which in October 1949 would become part of the Soviet sponsored German Democratic Republic. He became active in the no longer illegal local Anti-Fascist committee, later becoming active in the newly recreated Free German Youth.