Klaus Henkes

Klaus Henkes
Born	29 July 1929 Görlitz, Lower Silesia, Germany
Died	7 March 2003 Germany
Nationality	German
Occupation	Soldier, Civil Airline boss

Klaus Henkes (29 July 1929, in Görlitz – 7 March 2003) was a German soldier.

He was a Lieutenant general in the East German army (NVA) and a deputy Transport minister in the government from 1975 till 1990. Between 1978 and 1982 he was in charge of Interflug, the German Democratic Republic's national airline.

Henkes was born into a working class family in Görlitz where after leaving school relatively young he studied for a career as a chemical laboratory assistant. At the end of the war he was captured by the Soviets and was, according to one source, a Soviet prisoner of war between 1946 and 1949. He trained as a miner of Lignite (brown coal) at Espenhain (near Leipzig) and, in 1948, became a member of East Germany's ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED / "Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands"). By 1949 he had already reached the rank of with SAG Wismut, the important (Uranium) mining company.

A period of further education followed when he studied at the Freiberg Mining Academy from 1949 till 1950, after which he returned to Wismut, where he worked till 1952.

Klaus Henkes volunteered for military service on 23 May 1952, and was commended to attend training till 1953. This was a training programme instigated at the end of 1951 by the Soviet authorities which involved special training at Syzran, by the Volga River for approximately 220 East German future military pilots for that country's future military air force. (The country's army was only officially designed an army in 1956, prior to which quasi-military activity took place under the auspices of the Peoples' Police based in Barracks (KVP / Kasernierte Volkspolizei).)

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