Wilhelm Koenen

Wilhelm Koenen (April 7, 1886 – October 19, 1963) was a communist and an East German politician. He was married to Emmy Damerius-Koenen and was the father of Heinrich Koenen.

Koenen was born in Hamburg, the son of a socialist carpenter and a cook. After finishing Volksschule, he continued his education, taking classes in business from 1900 to 1903. Koenen joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 1903. In 1904, he found employment at a book shop in Kiel. In addition, he took courses at the workers' school in Hamburg and the Social Democrat Party school in Berlin. In 1907, he became a newspaper correspondent in Kiel and then in Königsberg. In 1911, he became editor of the social democrat newspaper, Volksblatt, in Halle.

In 1913, he became a member of the local district SPD leadership and with the majority of the local membership, joined the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) in 1917. During the German Revolution of 1918–1919, Koenen was the commissar of the Worker and Soldiers' Council of the Halle-Merseburg district. In the 1919-1920, he was elected to the Weimar National Assembly. On July 16, 1919, in the National Assembly, he called for the adoption of a constitutional provision that would exclusively grant to the authorities and charitable organizations the right to hold public film screenings for adolescents so that youth would be protected from the wheeling and dealing of "the capitalists".

In 1919, Koenen was a member of the board of the USPD's central committee, but in 1920, he joined the Communist Party (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, or KPD), where he became part of the left wing. Between the 1920 and 1932, he was a representative in the Weimar Republic Reichstag and, in addition, from 1926 to 1932, a city councilor in Berlin. In 1932, he became a representative in the Preußischer Landtag.

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