Gustav Sobottka (12 July 1886 – 6 March 1953) was a German politician in East Germany. He was a member of the Communist Party and was in exile during the Nazi era. He returned to Germany in 1945 as head of the Sobottka Group and later worked in the East German government. Early life Gustav Sobottka was born in Turowen (Turowo), in the administrative district of Johannisburg (Pisz) in East Prussia. His father, Adam Sobottka, was a roofer and day laborer, his mother was Auguste Sobottka. In 1895, the family moved to Röhlinghausen, today the southwestern part of Herne, in the Ruhr region. The family were Muckers Pietists, a pious movement within the Lutheran church. Sobottka was confirmed in 1901 and began working in the coal mines that same year. In 1909, he married Henriette, née Schantowski, called "Jettchen" (9 March 1888 – 15 September 1971). He and his wife had a daughter and two sons. In World War I Sobottka served in the German Army from August 1914 to November 1918. Political life Sobottka joined the Social Democrats in 1910, and his wife joined in 1912. Later, he was one of the founders of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany and became the leader in the Bochum-Gelsenkirchen district. At the end of 1920, he joined the Communist Party (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, or KPD). He was also one of the founding members and head of the "Miners' Group" in the communist-leaning Union of Manual and Intellectual Workers, whose 1925 merger into the confederation of unions, the Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, he initially opposed, but later worked to accomplish. Sobottka served in the Prussian Landtag as a representative of the KPD and he was the leader of the mining industry group of the KPD Central Committee. After he was expelled in 1928 from the Free Trade Unions' Miners' Association, in 1929, he became one of the founders and leading members of the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition. In 1930, he became general secretary of the International Committee of Miners. In 1932, he was not nominated to be a candidate for the Prussian Landtag and so began working with the Rote Hilfe (Red Aid). After the Nazi Party seized power, as communists were threatened by arrest and attack, he worked underground, then went to the Saarland, then still under foreign occupation. He then went to Paris and continued his work. In spring 1935,