Beate Ulbricht

Beate Ulbricht (born May 6, 1944 in Leipzig as Maria Pestunowa ; † December 5 or 6, 1991 in Berlin ) was the daughter of Walter Ulbricht by adoption, who was the leading politician in the GDR until 1971 .

Life

Beate Ulbricht was born under the name Maria Pestunowa as the daughter of a Ukrainian slave laborer and an unknown father in Leipzig. Shortly afterwards, the mother died in a bomb attack. After a stay in an orphanage and later with foster parents, Walter Ulbricht adopted her in January 1946. The background was Walter Ulbricht's desire for children and his partner Lotte Kühn . She had suffered several serious illnesses and could no longer have children.

Beate Ulbricht first completed her schooling in Berlin, from 1954 she attended the Russian special school on Kissingenstrasse in Berlin-Pankow , where she was cut and beaten by her classmates. At the age of 15, her adoptive parents, now married, sent her to Leningrad , where she graduated from high school. Beate Ulbricht then studied history and Russian at the Heart Institute there . In mid-1962 she began a love affair with the son of an Italian Communist Party official. Despite the resistance of their parents, both married in October 1963 in Pankow and Beate broke off her studies. After the birth of a daughter in February 1965, the idea of ​​going back to Leningrad arose. This should avoid the hostility from the parents, who further refused the connection. A few hours after her husband went to prepare to move, his wife's passport was confiscated. As a result, Walter Ulbricht and his wife succeeded in forcibly separating the couple. This situation lasted for two years and ended with Beate giving her consent to the divorce, whereupon she received her passport back. Shortly afterwards she flew to Leningrad, but could no longer find her husband. Instead, she met her school friend Yuri Polkownikow, whom she married in March 1968. A son was born in January 1969, and her studies were resumed.

After Walter Ulbricht's death in 1973, Beate divorced, took on the name of her first husband ( Matteoli ) and returned to the GDR. There she lived with two children, without a degree and without financial security because her father had disinherited her, under difficult social conditions. In the late 1970s, the authorities withdrew her custody of her children. Lotte Ulbricht took care of these now . In late autumn 1991 she gave the tabloid Super! her only extensive interview. A little later, on the night of December 5th to 6th, 1991, she was killed in her Lichtenberg apartment. The crime has not yet been cleared up. The forensic doctor Volkmar Schneider reports on the circumstances in his book Controversial Cases on the Dissecting Table .

literature

• Ines Geipel : daughter of the dictator. Novel . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2017, ISBN 978-3-608-98311-1 .
• Ines Geipel: Hilarious and useful - Beate Matteoli . In: Ines Geipel and Andreas Petersen (eds.): Black Box DDR. Untold lives under the SED regime . Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-86539-211-4 , pp. 160-165 .
• Christian Neef : precious little person . In: Der Spiegel . No. 35 , 2004 ( online - Aug. 23, 2004 ).

Web links

• Ines Geipel: How Ulbricht's adopted daughter got addicted to alcohol. Excerpt from the book Black Box DDR. Untold lives under the SED regime , Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2009. In: Die Welt . July 24, 2009, accessed May 1, 2014 . 
• Ines Geipel: A terrible family. Excerpt from the book Black Box DDR. Untold lives under the SED regime , Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2009. In: Die Welt . July 25, 2009, accessed May 1, 2014 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Volkmar Schneider : Explosive cases on the dissection table. Militzke Verlag, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 386189744X .