Annedore Leber

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Annedore liver (nee Rosenthal * 18th March 1904 in Wilmersdorf in Berlin; † 28. October 1968 in Berlin ) was a German journalist , publisher and SPD - politician . She was the widow of the Reichstag member and resistance fighter Julius Leber, who was murdered by the National Socialists .

Biography until the end of the Nazi dictatorship

Annedore Leber was the daughter of Auguste Bauch and Georg Rosenthal , a senior teacher. In 1914 the family moved to Fürstenwalde after their father had been given the management of the grammar school there. Her upbringing was rather conservative and strict. In 1918 the family moved to Lübeck , where their father was appointed director of the Katharineum high school in Lübeck . She received private tuition from her father and passed what is known as an external high school diploma. She then began studying law in Munich , which she dropped out in the fifth semester. Instead, she decided to do an apprenticeship as a seamstress in Berlin - this would later pay off for her family as well - and passed her master's examination there.

In November 1927, Annedore married Julius Leber, editor-in-chief of the social democratic daily Lübecker Volksbote - initially against the parents' wishes. She had met again by chance in Berlin the SPD member of the Reichstag, Leber, whom she already knew from Lübeck. In 1929 daughter Katharina was born; In 1931 his son Mathias followed. After the National Socialist “ seizure of power ” in 1933, her father was increasingly impressed by the steadfast political stance of his son-in-law, who from then on faced a long period of persecution and imprisonment in various concentration camps . Rosenthal himself had just been deposed by the Nazis as director of the Katharineum. He died, deeply depressed, in March 1934. While Annedore Leber tried to get her husband released from the highest authorities in Berlin, her mother looked after the two children.

In October 1935 Annedore Leber moved back to Berlin. As in Lübeck since 1933, she worked as a master tailor, opened a small shop and was able to provide for herself and her children. Here the Lebers also had many friends from the political resistance whose help they could hope for. At the beginning of 1936 her older brother Helmuth Rosenthal, who also lived in Berlin and who had always been of great help to her, died. After many letters of petition to the top Nazi leaders and repeated auditions with the Gestapo and the concentration camp inspector Theodor Eicke and especially after the tireless efforts of the Catholic Osnabrück Bishop Berning, she finally succeeded in getting Julius Leber released from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . Through the mediation of Gustav Dahrendorf , disguised as an employee of the Berlin coal dealer Bruno Meyer Nachf. , Together with Ludwig Schwamb , Ernst von Harnack and other like-minded friends, he was able to establish contacts with social democratic and bourgeois-civil resistance groups such as the Kreisau Circle .

At the beginning of July 1944, Julius Leber and Dahrendorf were arrested by the Gestapo and sentenced to death six months later (after a show trial before the People's Court ) . His wife Annedore and her children were taken into kin custody from August to the end of September 1944 and taken to the Moabit remand prison ; her children were released after a few weeks of forced residency in Dessau .

Political activities after 1945

The twelve years of constant persecution of her family by the National Socialists were not without consequences for the widow Annedore Leber, who, according to her own statements, converted to the Catholic Church in 1945. In the course of this time, the formerly rather apolitical woman had become a convinced and combative social democrat. As early as October 1945 she was elected head of the women's secretariat and the central committee of the SPD . On April 21, 1946, the SPD and KPD were forced to merge to form the SED in the Soviet occupation zone , whereupon Annedore Leber declared her exit and switched to the Western Zone SPD , which was founded by Kurt Schumacher a little later . For the new party she was sent to the Berlin city council during the first legislative period in 1946. From now on she began her journalistic activities: Arno Scholz was able to win her, together with the former Reichstag President Paul Löbe , as a license holder for the SPD-affiliated Telegraf newspaper . Several issues of the women's magazine Mosaik appeared in its publishing group Arani. In 1947 she founded the Mosaik Verlag (renamed Verlag Annedore Leber in 1961) in the former coal shop , which mainly published political and educational books. With her publications she made the resistance in the Nazi era known.

As Berlin city councilor, Annedore Leber gave an impressive speech on June 29, 1948 on the situation in Berlin during the blockade , with which she called on the United Nations to support it in dealing with this crisis. Under the title Berlin Women Appeal to Humanity , this speech was printed as a brochure together with contributions to the debate by the liberal city councilor Ella Barowsky , the Christian Democrat Lucia Krüger and a foreword by the mayor Louise Schroeder . In 1950 she sold her shares in the publishing house to Scholz and also returned the license. The first volume of her collection of resistance biographies, which she had compiled together with Willy Brandt and Karl Dietrich Bracher since the end of the war, was published by Mosaik-Verlag in 1953. In these 64 portraits of life from the German resistance 1933–1945 (later expanded in the volume The Conscience Decides ), she described the fates of all those who had gone through a life similar to that of their own family. Her early attachment to Willy Brandt was certainly not accidental; the returned exile had already written for the Lübecker Volksbote as a pupil under his maiden name Herbert Frahm .

tomb

Annedore Leber continued to be politically active. From 1954 to 1962 she was a district councilor for Berlin-Zehlendorf and from 1963 to 1967 a member of the Berlin House of Representatives. After the Bundeswehr was founded in 1955, it became one of 38 members of the personnel appraisal committee for the armed forces. She was a board member of the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation , a delegate of the Advisory Assembly of the Council of Europe and a member of the German Commission for UNESCO and the Cultural Policy Advisory Board of the Foreign Office .

Annedore Leber was buried in the Zehlendorf forest cemetery in an honorary grave of the city of Berlin in Dept. XVI-W-701.

Further honors

Memorial plaque for Annedore Leber in front of the house on Pariser Str.14a

The Annedore-Leber-Berufsbildungswerk Berlin (ALBBW) in Berlin-Britz with an integrated special vocational school and the Annedore-Leber-Grundschule in Berlin-Lichtenrade are named after Annedore Leber .

The former coal shop, where Annedore Leber later published her books, still exists. The demolition of the barrack was prevented. A working group to which the Schöneberg district store, the Geschichtswerkstatt Berlin and other residents belong is campaigning for a memorial at this location. They speak out in favor of preserving the historical traces and making them visible. Using the example of Annedore and Julius Leber, the resistance against fascism should be made tangible and understandable.

Works

  • Rosa Luxemburg : letters from prison . With a preface by Annedore Leber. Phönix - Verlag, Hamburg 1947. 62 pp.
  • (Ed.): Mosaic . The monthly sheet of time. With cutting arch. Mosaik - Verlag, Berlin - Wilmersdorf 1947. 24 pp.
  • (Ed.): The world garden . A big plan for all children. Text design by Walter May u. Werner Hinz. Mosaik - Verlag, Berlin - Frankfurt / Main 1953. 30 p. (The template for the book's illustrations was the UNESCO film A garden we planted together ).
  • (Ed.): The conscience stands up . 64 life pictures from the German resistance 1933 - 1945 collected and edited. in collaboration with Willy Brandt and Karl Dietrich Bracher . Mosaik - Verlag, Berlin - Frankfurt a. M. 1954. 237 pp.
    • (Ed.): The conscience stands up . Life pictures from the German resistance 1933 - 1945 collected and edited. in collaboration with Willy Brandt and Karl Dietrich Bracher. Newly published by Karl Dietrich Bracher in conjunction with the Forschungsgemeinschaft 20. Juli e. V. Also includes: Conscience decides . Hase & Koehler, Mainz 1984. XII, 455 pp.
  • (Ed.): Conscience decides . Areas of the German resistance from 1933 - 1945 in life pictures. Edited in collaboration with Willy Brandt and Karl Dietrich Bracher. Photographic assistance Ruth Wilhelmi . Mosaik - Verlag, Berlin - Frankfurt a. M. 1957. 303 pp.
  • Annedore Leber / Freya Countess von Moltke : For and against . Decisions in Germany 1918 - 1945. Mosaik - Verlag, Berlin - Frankfurt / Main 1961. 287 pp.
  • But the testimony lives on. The Jewish contribution to our life . Berlin - Frankfurt / M. 1965.

literature

Web links

Commons : Annedore Leber  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Katharina Christiansen-Leber († September 26, 2008 in Munich), German journalist.
  2. ↑ Clemens-August Recker: "Who do you want to believe?" Bishop Berning in the Third Reich . Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn Munich Vienna Zurich 1998. On Annedore Leber with sources: pp. 370–375
  3. ↑ Antje Dertinger: Women from the very beginning. , J. Latka Verlag, Bonn 1989, p. 67. ISBN 3-925068-11-2 .
  4. ↑ Learning and memorial place
personal data
SURNAME Leber, Annedore
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rosenthal, Annedore (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publicist and politician (SPD), MdA
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Wilmersdorf
DATE OF DEATH October 28, 1968
Place of death Berlin