Elisabeth Hennig

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Elisabeth Johanna Auguste Hennig (born September 16, 1900 in Düsseldorf , † December 13, 1958 in Gelsenkirchen ) was a German political activist (SPD).

Life and activity

Hennig was the daughter of an engineer. After passing the teacher examination for elementary and middle schools in Bochum in March 1920, Hennig initially worked as a private tutor. From 1921 to 1925 she worked at a Protestant elementary school. In 1925 she got a job at a school in Essen-Holsterhausen.

Since 1927 Hennig belonged to the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In the same year she moved to a school in Gelsenkirchen, where she was active in local politics and in the youth work of her party.

After the National Socialists came to power in the spring of 1933, Hennig was dismissed from school. She then moved to the Netherlands, where she initially lived in Laren near Zutphen in Gelderland. In the following years she worked as a courier for the border secretariat of the exiled SPD in the Amsterdam area. Your main task in this position was to organize the smuggling of anti-Nazi writings into the Reich. From 1939, she earned her living as a seamstress.

Because of her activities, Hennig was soon classified by the National Socialist police as an enemy of the state: in 1938 she was expatriated. And in the spring of 1940, the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin - which they mistakenly assumed to be in Great Britain - placed on the special wanted list GB , a list of people who in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the occupying forces of the occupying forces of the SS with special Priority should be located and arrested.

Due to his activity in Berlin, Magowan came under the sights of the National Socialist police officers at the end of the 1930s, who classified him as an important target: In the spring of 1940 the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB, a directory of people who were to be found in the event of a successful invasion and Occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht should be located and arrested by the occupation troops following special SS commandos with special priority.

On July 14, 1941, Hennig was located in Amsterdam by the Secret State Police and arrested. In 1942 she was indicted before the People's Court on charges of preparation for high treason. At the April 10, 1942 session, she was found guilty and sentenced to six years in prison. Since September 27, 1942, she was held in Gelsenkirchen prison. After falling ill, she was transferred to the Berlin-Moabit prison and from there to the Leipzig-Kleinmensdorf prison. On March 22, 1945 she was freed when American troops took control of the Cottbus penitentiary, in whose tuberculosis ward she was at that time. For convalescence purposes, however, she stayed in the hospital ward until June.

After the war, Hennig settled again in Gelsenkirchen, where she took over the leadership of the local SPD women's group and got involved in workers' welfare. In 1947 she was accepted into the service of the Gertrud Bäumler School in Gelsenkirchen, where she remained active until her death in 1958 due to the long-term effects of her imprisonment.

literature

  • Committed to freedom: Memorial Book of German Social Democracy in the 20th Century , 2000, p. 141.
  • Cordula Lissner: Going back the escape route: remigration to North Rhine and Westphalia 1945-1955 , 2006.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Entry on Hennig on the special search list GB (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London) .
personal data
SURNAME Hennig, Elisabeth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hennig, Elisabeth Johanna Auguste (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German political activist (SPD)
DATE OF BIRTH September 16, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Dusseldorf
DATE OF DEATH December 13, 1958
Place of death Gelsenkirchen