Elisabeth Pungs

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Elisabeth Adelaide Pungs (* 20th May 1896 in Bremen ; † 28. August 1945 in Berlin ), born Elisabeth Taaks , also known as Li or Liselotte later married Elisabeth Scherbius was a German resistance fighter in the era of National Socialism .

Childhood and youth

Elisabeth Taaks grew up in a middle-class family in Bremen . Her father, Georg Taaks, was a civil engineer, partner in a hydraulic engineering company. She had five siblings, three brothers and two sisters; one of her sisters died at the age of 11. She attended the “Roselius” secondary school for children in Bremen, a women's school, then a Swiss boarding school, from which she returned to Bremen at the beginning of the First World War . Relations with her conservative parents were not without tension. During the First World War she worked first in an infant home, then, in 1915 and 1916, as a Red Cross helper in the St. Joseph Abbey, which was used as a military hospital . Due to illness, she could no longer work there and attended the arts and crafts school in Bremen.

Marriage to Arthur Scherbius

Her first husband Arthur Scherbius (photo 1913) died in an accident in 1929

During a stay in Partenkirchen in the early summer of 1917, she met the doctoral engineer Arthur Scherbius  (picture) who, barely a year later, on February 23, 1918, applied for a patent for his most famous invention - the Enigma rotor cipher machine . Decades later, in the Second World War (1939–1945), it was used - in a modified form  - by the German Wehrmacht to encrypt its secret communications.

Elisabeth Taaks and Arthur Scherbius got engaged in June 1917 in his native Frankfurt am Main and married only a few months later, on November 10, 1917, in Elisabeth's hometown of Bremen. Her father and his brother Otto Christian Taaks were the best witnesses . She moved to Berlin to live with her husband . Her illness ( tuberculosis ) made long stays in hospitals and sanatoriums necessary from 1921. In 1924 the couple moved into their newly built house in Berlin-Wannsee . They stayed in contact with his mother in Frankfurt and with their parents and siblings. There were mutual visits. They also met their conservative older brother Claus on several occasions, and in 1923 and 1928 they also spent vacations with him. In Berlin her friends and acquaintances included electrical engineers like Scherbius himself, but also people interested in music, the fine arts, politics and literature, among them the publisher, engineer and inventor Friedrich Joseph Pungs .

In 1925, when the companies in which Scherbius was involved had significant economic problems, Arthur and Elisabeth agreed to separate property . She received all ownership with the exception of these holdings, i. H. the house and two accounts. On January 15, 1929, they took in a child from a home and applied for adoption . Arthur Scherbius died in an accident on May 13, 1929; the cipher AG , where he was involved, was in debt. The loss carried forward from 1925 had not yet been balanced and the Enigma had only been produced in small numbers until then. Elisabeth Scherbius had to leave the house in Wannsee, she moved into a smaller apartment. She adopted the child in 1930 under the name Scherbius.

Marriage to Friedrich Pungs, political activity

Street propaganda, such as this RHD car (1928), was only a small part of the Rote Hilfe , which essentially consisted of legal advice from committed lawyers who also published publications critical of the judiciary.

In 1931 she married Friedrich Joseph Pungs, their son was adopted by him. Her financial situation got better. In 1932 she sold the inherited from Scherbius house on Gertrude Henius, wife of the Jewish publisher Frank Henius , and let in Kleinmachnow a small house in the Bauhaus style building (architect: Paul Rudolf Henning ). There was a search there in 1933, but this had no consequences. While the house was being built, she and her son stayed with friends and acquaintances, for a time also in Partenkirchen, with David Stern-Gwiasda , who ran a school home there with his wife Karolina; meanwhile her husband lived in Berlin with his friend Werner Ackermann . The house was sold in 1936 and the family moved to Wiesbadener Straße 45 in Wilmersdorf . Elisabeth Pungs bought a tenement house in Berlin in 1936. Starting in 1938, her son was in the young people of the HJ , at its exercises and trips he certainly participated enthusiastically.

Elisabeth Pungs was already on the left in her youth; In the 1920s she was a member of the German League for Human Rights and was involved in campaigns for the abolition of the pregnancy paragraph §218 . From 1931 she was a member of the Red Aid Germany (RHD), a political aid organization that was close to the KPD . Like the German League for Human Rights, this was banned after the seizure of power in 1933.

Discussion group

The Pungs' acquaintances and friends included people who were in the KPD or sympathized with it. In Kleinmachnow, as from 1936 on Wiesbadener Strasse, a small group met with her to discuss politics, including literature and art; Marxist works were read and discussed. Outwardly he appeared as a circle of intellectuals and artists. Friedrich Pungs was a party member like her and knew the participants, but was not present at the political meetings at their request. Both her relatives and his relatives knew about the discussion group. In 1935, she met Alfred Schmidt-Sas , who was initially a piano teacher for her son, then he also took part in the talks. In 1937/38 six Jewish participants emigrated, Arnold and Friedel Motulsky, Mr. and Mrs. Loewy, Mr. Millet and his girlfriend, Miss Neldener. The pharmacist and pharmaceutical representative Arnold Motulsky, who was also active in other oppositional circles and in the KPD, recommended her to the young Hanno Günther , who was friends with his sons , with whom she held political talks from then on. In the interrogations by the Gestapo in 1941, only those participants in the discussion group who had emigrated and those who were already known to the Gestapo were named: Albert Rettich (stage name Albert Arid , actor and director) and his wife, Kristine Hörnecke and her mother, Alfred Schmidt-Sas (from 1935 occasionally); When Elisabeth Pungs' son was interviewed by the author Volker Hoffmann, he named Erich Ohser (eoplauen). When Friedrich Pungs' friend Werner Ackermann was interned by Belgium in southern France in 1940, his wife Ota and daughter Sonja Ackermann lived with Pungs; When Werner Ackermann returned to occupied Belgium and was active there in the defense , his wife moved in with him. When asked in 2013, Sonja, who continued to live with Pungs during the war, named Peter Keler as a participant in the discussion group.

Sticky notes and leaflets "The Free Word"

In late autumn 1939, after the attack on Poland , Elisabeth Pungs, together with Hanno Günther, wrote a first leaflet, which was formulated as an open letter from a dissatisfied old party comrade; they distributed it as carbon copies in around 100 copies. In addition, until the end of 1939 they produced sticky notes with slogans like “Every victory brings a new war!”, Which they put in clearly visible places in seven or eight actions, e.g. B. on posters, stuck. The text of the leaflet and the slogans are quoted in the indictment and in the judgment against the “Rütligruppe”. After Albert Arid was arrested in the spring of 1940 for possession of other leaflets, Elisabeth Pungs brought a transfer printing device that Alfred-Schmidt-Sas had procured back to them unused. No more leaflets were written until the summer of 1940, when Hanno Günther obtained another transfer printer. Six leaflets entitled “The Free Word” were written, printed and distributed, with an edition of 200-300 copies each. The leaflets in this series called for the overthrow of the “Nazi plutocracy”, for peace, and for the fight against war. In contrast to the prevailing excitement about the "successes" - the victories over Poland, then over France - she saw that these victories would lead to further wars and ruin the people, the material for these victories. It was precisely the consent of a majority of Germans to the war that prompted them to protest.

Elisabeth Pungs and Hanno Günther wrote the first leaflet in this series in July 1940. When asked “Does Hitler want peace?” The answer was that every victory would lead to further wars.

The second leaflet charged readers with the fact that the government's social benefits were in fact restrictions. The "socialism" of the "Hitler plutocrats" is "just the cloak to plunder the people even more shamelessly." This leaflet ends with the slogans of the sticky notes, thus establishing the connection between the actions - also for the Gestapo .

The third leaflet again names the "masters of coal and iron" as opponents and calls for peace, freedom and representation of the people. At the suggestion of Hanno Günther, it was signed for the first time with “The German Peace Front”. Even then there were objections from Elisabeth Pungs that Günther's contributions were not decisive enough. In the interrogations she called them “too vague”, Günther testified that they were “not communist enough” for her.

The fourth leaflet from November 1940 was written by Hanno Günther and his friend Wolfgang Pander . They had obtained data from public sources about the Royal Air Force , which was already bombing Berlin at that time. In the leaflet, Günther and Pander refuted the superiority of the air force and air defense claimed by the Nazi propaganda, and showed that the victories over the RAF claimed by Göring did not exist.

The fifth leaflet from December 1940 was also written by Hanno Günther and Wolfgang Pander, it contained, at Pander's request, a "Christmas legend" in which Joseph Goebbels is portrayed as a liar and a deceiver, whose empty promises people can see through at the end of the leaflet.

The sixth and last leaflet published in January 1941 was written by Elisabeth Pungs alone. It takes the position of a German worker, calls u. a. to work more slowly, and reports of workers on a large construction site in Teltow who refused to work an hour longer every day.

(From December 1940, after the leaflet campaigns had ceased, Hanno Günther gathered a group of young people around him, above all former students of the Rütli School , with whom he read Marxist works and discussed current politics and BBC programs . Elisabeth Pungs was not involved in this group.)

Arrest, interrogation and first pre-trial detention

Elisabeth Pungs was questioned by the Gestapo for the first time on August 1, 1941 , her apartment was searched on August 11, her typewriter, six books and three brochures - only two of them and the brochures on the KPD line - were confiscated. she was taken into police custody. Hanno Günther, his group and Alfred Schmidt-Sas were also arrested at the end of July / beginning of August. They were all grouped together by the Gestapo as the “Rütli group”, although they did not resist together, but in different ways and at different times. They were interrogated by Detective Secretary Otto Kablitz (Section IV A 1 of the Reich Security Main Office ); She could not deny the facts accused of Elisabeth Pungs, especially the writing and distribution of leaflets. From the beginning, the Gestapo pursued the goal of proving an organizational connection to the KPD, but this remained subordinate. Her son was placed in a rural education home by her . Since 1940 she had taken in the wife and daughter of Werner Ackermann , a childhood friend and former publishing partner of her husband, into her apartment . Her family stood up for her: Her brother Claus, a member of the NSDAP , drove from Hamburg to Berlin on August 4-7, 1941, until the end of the war he and two confidants of the family, a lawyer and a teacher who was dismissed in 1939, came several times there. Nothing is known about the content of her conversations with her lawyer (RA) and others. Her lawyer, Walter Menzel , applied to the People's Court (VGH) for representation on September 26, 1941 , which - after internal court disputes - was approved on December 4. Further interrogations by the Gestapo followed. At the beginning of October she was transferred from the Charlottenburg court prison to the infirmary of the Alt-Moabit prison; On October 21, 1941, at the insistence of her lawyer, the prison doctor declared her incapable of imprisonment for overt tuberculosis and released her to the home hospital in Buch , about six weeks later she was transferred to the Elisabeth sanatorium in Stahnsdorf .

Her husband, Friedrich Pungs, had worked for Zimmer & Co. in Lille and Ostend since 1940 , whose products were used in occupied northern France and Belgium for the construction of airfields and positions for the Atlantic Wall . A spray gun he had invented was used to camouflage these objects with plaster and paint. Shortly before the trial of Elisabeth Pungs, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and continued his work in Lille as an officer in the reserve . He sent her groceries.

Separation of their proceedings, witness in the process against the "Rütli group"

On May 8, 1942, Elisabeth Pungs sold her apartment building to her lawyer, presumably in order to use the proceeds to pay for her costs for defense, doctors and sanatorium, for her son's stay in the educational home and many other things. On May 26, 1942, the “Rütli Group” was indicted by senior attorney Ernst Lautz , Elisabeth Pungs, of preparing for high treason, producing and distributing writings, and favoring the enemy . The previous discussion group only served as evidence of their attitude. A new arrest warrant against her dated June 15, 1942 was initially suspended, and an opinion from the attending physician, Walther Kröner , confirmed that she was incapable of imprisonment. On July 23, lawyer Menzel submitted an application for the separation of the proceedings, which was granted, and she was also supposed to be a witness in the process. Which negotiations in the background had led to this remained unknown. There may have been contacts with a friend of her family, Hans Gramm , who had been Franz Schlegelberger's personal advisor since 1935 , the acting Minister of Justice in 1941 and 1942. The Oberreichsanwalt, represented by Public Prosecutor (StA) Karl Bruchhaus , submitted a file and applied for another hearing against her on October 9, 1942. The warrant for her arrest was carried out on September 29 and she was admitted to the infirmary of the prison in Moabit. She did not yet know whether she would be a witness or a defendant on October 9th. During this second detention in Moabit, she wrote a prison diary. In the trial against the “Rütli Group” on October 9, 1942, the 2nd Senate of the People's Court sentenced all of the accused to death, with the exception of one young woman who was hardly involved in the group around Hanno Günther. Elisabeth Pungs had a fever while interviewed as a witness and could hardly concentrate. It was about the procurement of the transfer printing devices and their storage by Schmidt-Sas. Her statement that, in her opinion, the latter should have suspected that the devices should be used for illegal purposes, was taken by the court as further confirmation of an already established judgment on him.

Delay in proceedings against them until the end of the war

1942: One for November 14th. The scheduled main hearing did not take place

Shortly after the hearing, the VGH set November 14, 1942 as the date for the main hearing against Elisabeth Pungs. Except for her, everyone involved found out about this very early, but she only found out on November 12th. On November 5, 1942, attorney Menzel had submitted a detailed brief in their defense, in which he relied on the following arguments: The leaflets, since distributed before the "Russian War", did not represent the enemy, nor did they have any political influence. Her personality was shaped by her involvement in the First World War and by her illness and drove her to act. She had a "path in life" that did not make her pacifistic, but had the effect that "the love of peace that exists in every human being turns into an unhealthy way." Tuberculosis also has its "state of mind" directly, through a "toxic effect" influenced; Menzel refers to Dr. Melzer, chief physician of the Fürstabt-Gerbert-Haus lung sanatorium in St. Blasien in the Black Forest, whom he had visited to prepare the defense letter. Finally, Menzel applied for reports from other experts. On November 12, 1942, Elisabeth Pungs was released to the Elisabeth sanatorium in Stahnsdorf . On the same day, StA Bruchhaus wrote to the prison doctor with the request for an expert opinion and for "an early notification whether the main hearing against Ms. Pungs can be carried out." A trial against her planned for November 14, 1942 did not take place. It is not known whether the defense letter and the expert opinion commissioned by Menzel alone had this effect. Friedrich Pungs was informed of their defense in Lille. Occasionally he would send her groceries from northern France and Belgium. On December 5, 1942, Elisabeth's brother Claus had an appointment with Hans Gramm, they agreed that the lawyer would notify Menzel as soon as the court decided on a new arrest. To what extent, however, Hans Gramm could still do something for them after Thierack had been appointed Minister of Justice and Rothenberger as State Secretary in August 1942 and Schlegelberger had left the Ministry is unclear. Gramm left the Ministry at the end of February 1943 and was drafted into the Wehrmacht. The proceedings against Elisabeth Pungs were pushed forward by StA Bruchhaus, delayed by RA Menzel and others from the end of 1942. An examination of their ability to be detained, interrogated and negotiated, which StA Bruchhaus applied to Victor Müller-Heß on November 29, 1942 , was repeatedly postponed, also at Menzel's instigation.

1943: Several reports and a fictitious hemorrhage

StA Bruchhaus pushed through that Elisabeth Pungs should report to Bremer in the Elisabeth Hospital for an examination on January 25th. That appointment was postponed to January 29, with a note that she would have to stay in hospital for eight days for the exam. On January 30th, Bremer submitted a detailed report on her state of health, the result of which was:

“With this picture it is not to be expected that Ms. P. will ever be free of germs for a long time. You can therefore not consider them liable, but for a few hours in the morning I consider them to be able to be heard and heard. "

On March 3, Müller-Hess agreed to this dangerous judgment. It was not until March 7 that Müller-Hess examined her after several inquiries from the court. Lawyer Menzel got in touch with Müller-Heß and announced to the VGH after further delays on July 15 that it would examine her again, and that Dr. Melzer, St. Blasien, could examine them beforehand, on July 23rd. As RA Menzel learned, the public prosecutor's office was determined to make an arrest shortly before a last-minute date in order to obtain an immediate conviction. Menzel warned Elisabeth Pungs, her youngest brother Hermann and her husband Friedrich Pungs. They discussed possible ways to save her: Because of her illness, life in the underground did not seem possible, hiding in France or Belgium was not possible at the time. The doctor known to them as "reliable", Dr. Georg Groscurth consulted Ferdinand Sauerbruch about a possible operation, but then suggested another solution: On August 3, 1943, her brother Hermann met her in the small zoo in front of the Robert Koch Hospital and gave her a bottle of prepared blood, the he had received from Groscurth. She doused herself with blood in a telephone booth, and her brother took her to the clinic as an "unknown soldier" to see Dr. Groscurth, who did not notify anyone of her admission. This "hemorrhage" happened on August 3, 1943, RA Menzel informed Dr. Müller-Hess, who mentioned the "alleged hemorrhage" in his report of August 11, but then cited it as an indication that the tuberculosis was still open and that Elisabeth Pungs was therefore neither able to negotiate nor interrogate. On October 6th, the 2nd Senate of the VGH decided that the proceedings against Elisabeth Pungs would be suspended for the time being. This gained about half a year for the defense. From this time on she wrote a sanatorium diary.

(Elisabeth Pungs' youngest brother was in Berlin as the decipherer of agent radio in OKH / In 7 / VI , the “ Referat Vauck ”; through this activity he contributed - although not decisively and in a subordinate position - to Georg Groscurth, co-founder the resistance group " European Union ", was arrested and executed shortly afterwards.)

1944: The "search" for Elisabeth Pungs and further delays

Her son had to be drafted as a flak helper on January 2, 1944, but since he had TB as a child, he was postponed.

In early 1944, StA Bruchhaus asked where Elisabeth Pungs was, RA Menzel, who was in constant contact with her, pretended to be ignorant and replied on March 10, 1944 that he had to ask Friedrich Pungs, who was still stationed in Lille, and asked for one 14 days for this. Only on May 17th did information arrive from Lille that she was in the Elisabeth sanatorium in Stahnsdorf, Menzel first informed Elisabeth Pungs, then on July 28th he passed the information on to the senior Reich attorney, and the application was made on September 12th StA Bruchhaus a new report. Her youngest brother described her actual state of health: "Her actual state of health was, if not good, not particularly bad and hardly gave rise to particular fears." However, it has deteriorated since her husband stopped sending her food from France or Belgium could.

She did not hear the last message from her husband in September 1944 that he had fled to Belgium at the end of August and was living in Antwerp from September 4th . After the state education center was closed, her son lived with her in the sanatorium from September 1944 and had to work in a workshop a few kilometers away.

End of war and post-war period

On April 24, 1945 Stahnsdorf was taken by the Red Army , the sanatorium was preserved. On April 26th, her son was arrested by Red Army soldiers at a roadblock. He was taken to a camp near Trebbin , but was able to come back to her on May 3rd. On May 14th, both of them left the sanatorium and went back to town, where they arrived on May 15th. She reported to the KPD chairman of the district and offered to help with the reconstruction as far as she could, but the comrades accused her of being complicit in the death of Schmidt-Sas through her testimony. In addition, she was "bought out" by her wealthy relatives who were Nazis. The very fact that she survived made her suspicious.

She died of tuberculosis on August 28, 1945. On September 26, her urn was buried by her son and brother in the south-west cemetery in Stahnsdorf .

Works in which Elisabeth Pungs is mentioned

Novel:

  • Hans Fallada : Everyone dies for himself alone . There she appears as "Fraulein Anna Schönlein", a pitiful, helpless figure. - Fallada knew Alfred Schmidt-Sas (role model for the figure of "Dr. Reichardt") and his fiancée Marga Dietrich , he heard the version that Elisabeth Pungs was complicit in the death of Schmidt-Sas.

Memoirs:

  • Daniel de Duve: Une enfance au bord du Rhin. 1930-1945 . Ed. Racine, Bruxelles 2010, ISBN 978-2-87386-648-8 (childhood and youth memories of the author).
  • Christian de Duve : Sept vies en une. Mémoires d'un Prize Nobel . Ed. Odile Jacob Sciences. Paris 2013. (Only the first chapter: "Première partie. Les années d'enfance. 1917–1934. Un héritage culturel", see google books)

literature

  • Friedrich L. Bauer : Historical Notes on Computer Science . Springer, Heidelberg 2009, p. 46 ff. (P. 47: engagement photo, June 1917).
  • Volker Hoffmann: Hanno Günther, an opponent of Hitler. Story of an unfinished battle . Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-89468-050-4 .
  • Volker Hoffmann: The senior from Plötzensee. The torn life of the music educator Alfred Schmidt-Sas (1895–1943) . Critical biography with a foreword by Gisela May and an afterword by Johannes Tuchel [= Biographies of European Antifascists, Vol. 2], 1998, ISBN 3-89626-089-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Friedrich L. Bauer : Historical Notes on Computer Science. Springer, Berlin a. a. 2009, ISBN 3-540-85789-3 , doi: 10.1007 / 978-3-540-85790-7 , p. 46 ff. (P. 47: engagement photo, June 1917).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k In the Federal Archives existing files of the process of the "People's Court" against the "Riitli group" and Special Band "Pungs" of Oberreich lawyer.
  3. ^ Letter from her older brother Claus to his bride dated November 3, 1923.
  4. ↑ Letters from her brother Claus from 1923 and 1928.
  5. ^ Letter from her mother-in-law Hedwig Scherbius to her on January 18, 1931.
  6. ^ Letter of September 8, 1929 to a childhood friend.
  7. ↑ Carola Tischler: "The courtrooms must be turned into tribunals against the class judges." The legal advice practice of Red Aid Germany . In: Sabine Hering, Kurt Schilde (ed.): Die Rote Hilfe. The history of the international communist "welfare organization" and its social activities in Germany . Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2003, ISBN 3-8100-3634-X .
  8. ↑ a b c Volker Hoffmann: Hanno Günther. An opponent of Hitler 1921–1942. Story of an unfinished battle . Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-89468-050-4 , pp. 45-48.
  9. ^ Central land register archive, Berlin.
  10. ^ Letter from her brother Hermann to her brother Claus dated January 23, 1948.
  11. ^ Letter from Friedrich Pungs to her brother Claus dated January 24, 1948.
  12. ↑ Volker Hoffmann: The longest-serving of Plötzensee. The torn life of the music educator Alfred Schmidt-Sas (1895–1943) . Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-89626-089-8 , p. 121 ff.
  13. ↑ Volker Hoffmann: Hanno Günther an opponent of Hitler. 1921-1942. Story of an unfinished battle . Berlin 1992, p. 212.
  14. ↑ Volker Hoffmann: Hanno Günther an opponent of Hitler. 1921-1942. Story of an unfinished battle . Berlin 1992, pp. 62-88.
  15. ^ RSHA report of August 18, 1941 about the arrest of Elisabeth Pungs, Erich Jazosch and Alfred Schmidt-Sas, Federal Archives.
  16. ^ Indictment.
  17. ↑ a b Denazification files of her brother Claus.
  18. ^ Judgment of the "People's Court" on the "Rütli group".
  19. ↑ a b Letter from her brother Hermann to her relatives from November 17, 1945.
  20. ^ Sanatorium diary.
  21. ↑ Volker Hoffmann: The longest-serving of Plötzensee. The torn life of the music educator Alfred Schmidt-Sas (1895–1943) . Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-89626-089-8 , p. 237, based on an interview with her son in 1987.
personal data
SURNAME Pungs, Elisabeth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pungs, Elisabeth Adelaide (full name); Taaks, Elisabeth (maiden name); Scherbius, Elisabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German resistance fighter in the Third Reich
DATE OF BIRTH May 20, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH August 28, 1945
Place of death Berlin