Editing Hans Modrow (section)

==Early life and education==
Modrow was born on 27 January 1928 in [[Jasienica, Police|Jasenitz]], Province of Pomerania<!-- DO NOT LINK, see [[MOS:GEOLINK]] for further guidance -->, German Reich<!-- DO NOT LINK, see [[MOS:GEOLINK]] for further guidance -->, now [[Jasienica, Police|Jasienica]], part of the town of [[Police, West Pomeranian Voivodeship|Police]] in Poland.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Osmond|first1=Jonathan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0hNoAAAAMAAJ&q=Hans+Modrow+27+jan+1928|title=German Reunification: A Reference Guide and Commentary |last2=Alsop |first2=Rachel |date=1992 |publisher=Longman|isbn=978-0-582-09650-9|page=226}}</ref><ref name="Zur Person">{{cite web|url=https://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/ADS/Findbuch_04.pdf|title=Findbücher / 04 Bestand: Dr. Hans Modrow, MdB (1990 bis 1994) |publisher=[[Rosa Luxemburg Foundation]] |date=June 2001|access-date=28 February 2019|language=de}}</ref> As a child he was a [[Hitler Youth]] leader and attended a [[Volksschule]]. He trained as a [[machinist]] from 1942 to 1945 when he was filled with intense hatred of the [[Bolsheviks]], whom he deemed as [[Untermensch|subhumans]], inferior to Germans physically and morally.<ref name="IC">{{cite book |last1=Applebaum |first1=Anne |title=Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944–1956 |url=https://archive.org/details/ironcurtaincrush00appl_0 |url-access=registration |date=2012 |publisher=Doubleday |location=New York  |isbn=9780385515696 |page=[https://archive.org/details/ironcurtaincrush00appl_0/page/17 17]-18}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=I Was the Last Communist Premier of East Germany |url=https://jacobinmag.com/2019/11/berlin-wall-fall-east-germany-hans-modrow-cold-war |access-date=5 April 2022 |website=Jacobin Magazine|date=2019 |author= Alex Brown | type= interview with Hans Modrow}}</ref> For six months during the [[Strategic bombing during World War II|Allied bombing]] of [[Szczecin|Stettin]] he served as a volunteer firefighter.<ref name=":0" /> He later served briefly in the [[Volkssturm]] in January 1945,<ref name=":0" /><ref name="Zur Person"/> and was subsequently captured as a [[prisoner of war]] by the Soviet [[Red Army]] in [[Stralsund]] in May 1945. He and other German prisoners were sent to a farm in [[Hinterpommern]] to work. Upon arrival, his backpack was stolen, making him begin to rethink the Germans' so-called camaraderie. Days later, he was appointed a driver to a Soviet captain, who asked him about [[Heinrich Heine]], a German poet. Modrow had never heard of him and felt embarrassed that the people he thought of as "subhumans" knew more about [[German culture]] than he. Transported to a [[German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union|POW camp]] near Moscow, he joined a [[National Committee for a Free Germany]] anti-fascist school run by future SED Politburo member [[Alfred Neumann (East German politician)|Alfred Neumann]] for [[Wehrmacht]] members and received training in [[Marxism–Leninism]], which he embraced.<ref name="IC"/><ref name=":0" /> Upon release in 1949 he worked as a machinist for [[LEW Hennigsdorf]].<ref name="Zur Person"/> That same year he joined the [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany|Socialist Unity Party]] (SED).<ref name="Zur Person"/>

From 1949 to 1961, Modrow worked in various functions for the [[Free German Youth]] (FDJ) in [[Brandenburg]], [[Mecklenburg]], and Berlin and in 1952 and 1953 studied at the [[Komsomol]] college in Moscow.<ref name="Zur Person"/> In 1953, he attended the [[Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin|state funeral of Joseph Stalin]]. After [[Nikita Khrushchev]]'s [[On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences|Secret Speech]] at the [[20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|20th Party Congress]] condemning Stalin and beginning [[de-Stalinization]], Modrow claimed to have complained to his former teacher Neumann "Comrade, this is unacceptable — you are accusing us of having learned Stalin off by heart, but I never had the inclination to do this myself, you asked us to!"<ref name=":0" /> From 1953 to 1961, he served as an FDJ functionary in [[East Berlin]].<ref name="Zur Person"/> From 1954 to 1957, he studied at the SED's Karl Marx School in Berlin, graduating as a social scientist.<ref name="Zur Person"/> In 1959 to 1961 he studied at the University of Economics in Berlin-[[Karlshorst]] and obtained the degree of graduate economist.<ref name="Zur Person"/> He gained his doctorate at the [[Humboldt University of Berlin]] in 1966.<ref name="Zur Person"/> West Germany's [[Federal Intelligence Service (Germany)|Federal Intelligence Service]] (BND) kept Modrow under observation from 1958 to 2013.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Heilig|first=René|title=BND spionierte mindestens 71.500 DDR-Bürger aus |url=https://www.nd-aktuell.de/artikel/958750.bnd-spionierte-mindestens-ddr-buerger-aus.html|access-date=11 February 2023|website=Redaktion nd |language=de | date= 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |author=David Martin |url=https://www.dw.com/en/last-east-german-leader-hans-modrow-demands-access-to-wests-intelligence-files/a-42774003 |title=Last East German leader Hans Modrow demands access to West's intelligence files |work=[[Deutsche Welle]] |date=28 February 2018 |access-date=17 February 2019}}</ref>