Clare Quast

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Klara "Cläre" Quast , née Riedesel , widowed Muth , (born May 4, 1902 in Barmen , † April 26, 1984 in East Berlin ) was a German resistance fighter against the Nazi regime and a trade unionist .

Childhood and youth

Cläre Riedesel was born into a working-class family with eight children. After elementary school, she received a scholarship for the home economics training school in Arrenberg . In 1917 her mother wanted her to be housed as a house daughter in the household of the textile merchant Fischel, as she hoped that Clare would get enough to eat there. When the school learned that Fischel was a Jew, the daughter was expelled from school. However, after three months she was released for taking bacon from the pantry; The mother, who worked as a tailor for Fischel, also lost her job. The daughter then worked in various armaments production companies.

In 1919 Cläre Riedesel became a member of the Free Socialist Youth , then the Communist Youth Association of Germany and the German Clothing Workers Association , and some of her siblings were also politically active on the left. In addition, she was involved in the works council of the company in which she worked, in the voluntary workers' aid and the Red Aid Germany . In 1922 she became a member of the KPD and in 1927 of the Red Women's and Girls' Association . She mainly did child and youth work, such as pioneer camps , and was considered a good and quick-witted speaker. From January to March 1928 she attended the party school of the KPD "Rosa Luxemburg" in Dresden .

Resistance and persecution

In 1930 Cläre Riedesel married Willi Muth , who like her was a member of the KPD. The Muths escaped the first wave of arrests by the Nazi authorities after the Reichstag fire on February 27, 1933 because they had just moved, and they were rebuilding the underground KPD in Wuppertal . Clare Muth was particularly responsible for making contact with women workers in textile companies. The couple soon became aware that they were being followed.

Despite various precautionary measures, Willi Muth was arrested on January 17, 1935. Clare Muth hid in an attic with friends and then fled to the Netherlands with the help of her brother-in-law Heinrich Muth , where she learned of her husband's death. In the Netherlands, she was a senior employee of the Wuppertal Committee to reactivate the trade union opposition , also with the help of her older sister Berta, who died in a bomb attack on Wuppertal in 1943 with the parents of the two women. Clare Muth was wanted by the German authorities for "preparation for high treason" and expatriated in 1937. In the Gestapo files you can read about Cläre Muth: "She is one of the most active and authoritative functionaries of the illegal KPD who spread the meanest atrocity news about Germany abroad." Under "Languages" is noted: "Bergische Mundart".

From the Netherlands she fled to France, where she worked on the Thälmann Committee and was a member of the coordination committee of German trade unions in France (1937–1939). From August 1939 to 1941 she was imprisoned, initially as an "undesirable foreigner" in the Parisian women's prison Petite Roquette and later in the Rieucros camp in southern France .

Emigration to Mexico

In 1941, Clare Muth managed to obtain a visa for Mexico and to emigrate there. In Mexico City she was a member of the Free Germany Movement and the Heinrich Heine Club in Mexico City. In 1942 she married Richard Quast (1896-1966), who lived under the name Paul Hartmann in Mexico, which is why she was named Clara Hartmann there .

In the DDR

After the end of the Second World War , Cläre Quast initially returned to Wuppertal; In 1947 she moved to East Berlin . From 1948 to 1958 she was a member or chairwoman of the Berlin district committee of the IG Textile-Clothing-Leather in the Free German Trade Union Federation . Then she worked until 1963 at the Institute for Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the SED , History Department / Resistance Section. From May 1948 to October 1949 she was a member of the FDGB parliamentary group of the German People's Council and until October 1950 of the Provisional People's Chamber of the GDR, at that time under the name of Cläre Muth. In June 1977 she was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in gold as a veteran in Berlin .

Cläre Quast's estate is in the Federal Archives .

literature

  • Tânia Ünlüdağ : “'Ms. Muth is undoubtedly to be regarded as one of the government's greatest enemies of the state.'” In: Forschungsgruppe Wuppertal Resistance (ed.): “Se krieje us nit kaputt”. Faces of the Wuppertal resistance. Essen 1995, ISBN 3-9804014-2-1 , pp. 13-38.
  • Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German communists. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 ( online ).

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Clare Quast: The Rosa Luxemburg School in Dresden in 1928, in: At that time in Fichtenau. Memories of the central party school of the KPD. Schöneiche-Fichtenau Memorial and Educational Center 1980, pp. 31–36.
  2. ↑ 1942 as the wedding date is stated on the website of the Federal Archives. Ünlüdağ's essay speaks of 1957.
  3. ↑ Central Committee of the SED congratulates Comrade Klara Quast . In: Neues Deutschland , May 4, 1977, p. 4.
  4. ↑ High state awards given . In: Neues Deutschland, June 28, 1977, p. 5.
  5. ↑ Cläre Quast estate on startext.net-build.de
personal data
SURNAME Quast, Clare
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Courage, Klara; Courage, Clare
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German resistance fighter and trade unionist
DATE OF BIRTH May 4, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Barmen
DATE OF DEATH April 26, 1984
Place of death East Berlin