Karl-Heinz Bartsch

Karl-Heinz Bartsch (1923 to 2003) was a German agronomist and university teacher who became an East German politician of the Socialist Unity Party and Deputy Minister for Agriculture. Born near Danzig, he volunteered for the Waffen-SS in 1941, was a prisoner of war in 1945, then studied at the Martin Luther University in Halle, took a degree in agriculture in 1949 and a doctorate in 1951 with a comparative study of four dairy cattle breeds. He managed an agricultural co-operative, headed a department at the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, received his habilitation in 1961 and directed the Institute for Animal Research and Domestic Animal Genetics at Humboldt University, where he became professor in 1963. He was East Germany's Deputy Minister for Agriculture in 1962 and 1963 and was elected to the party Central Committee in January 1963, but within weeks he was removed from his functions and in March 1963 his party membership was revoked because he had concealed his Waffen-SS membership. He later worked in animal breeding and husbandry at agricultural co-operatives and retired in 1988.