Elsa Fenske

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Bust of Elsa Fenske in the park of the Dresden retirement home, Freiberger Straße
Memorial plaque to Elsa Fenske from 1956 at her place of work, the Dresden City Hall

Elsa Fenske , b. Classen, also Fenske-Classen, (born April 20, 1899 in Aachen , † December 29, 1946 in Dresden ) was a German politician, KPD functionary and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Fenske was born in 1899 as the daughter of a factory owner and textile specialist from Aachen and a Dutch woman with Spanish roots. She had a sister. Fenske spent her childhood and youth in Bern , Switzerland , but returned to Aachen for her commercial training. She began to work in Cologne and from 1920 was also a member of the free trade union in Cologne. Through her brother-in-law, she became interested in the theory of Marxism and joined the KPD in Berlin in 1922. Two years later she was indicted in the so-called Cheka trial before the Reichsgericht in Leipzig, but acquitted after six months of pre -trial detention for lack of evidence.

After a period of unemployment, Fenske began working as a correspondent for the Soviet Union's commercial agency in 1925 . Her apartment on Berlin's Jüdenstrasse became a meeting place for members and sympathizers of the KPD. Fenske was actively involved in the KPD, among other things, she was active as the KPD's women's leader in the Berlin-Zentrum sub-district, belonged to the women's department of the Berlin-Brandenburg district leadership and was ultimately even a member of the women's department of the central committee. In 1932, Fenske moved with her husband and their son Kurt Fenske, who was born in 1930, to Hamburg-Altona , where she became an instructor for company work in the Altona district management of the KPD.

From 1933 Fenske participated illegally in the resistance against the National Socialists. She was arrested with her son in 1933 and taken to Altona prison. She was released after three months; her husband was imprisoned, from which he never returned. Fenske continued her work in the resistance in freedom and was arrested again on October 1, 1936. She was taken to the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp and imprisoned in Hamburg and Berlin-Moabit. In the winter of 1938, Fenske was sentenced to life imprisonment for “preparing for high treason”. She spent her imprisonment in Lübeck prison and from January 1939 in Jauer prison . During his imprisonment, Fenske fell seriously ill and was taken to the Jauer camp hospital. She barely escaped deportation to Auschwitz; As a sick woman, she remained in the Jauer camp hospital in early 1945, where she was liberated by the Red Army on February 12, 1945 . Victor Klemperer wrote in his diary in July 1946 that Fenske had "retained a vocal disorder" during his imprisonment.

Elsa Fenske's urn grave on the Heidefriedhof in Dresden

Fenske came to Dresden on May 8, 1945 with the " Gruppe Ackermann ", an initiative group of the KPD for Saxony led by Anton Ackermann and Hermann Matern . Only a few days later she became a city councilor and head of the social welfare department. In this position, between May and July 1945, she coordinated, among other things, the registration, care and support of around 160,000 refugees in Dresden shortly after the end of the war, visited refugee camps and organized the accommodation of over 6000 war orphans in homes and private care centers. "In tough detailed work, she created all the facilities that the Saxon capital can boast of again: children's homes, school meals, a uniform insurance system, help for refugees, etc.", summarized the New Germany in an obituary for Fenske. Fenske reported on her work in 1946 in the publication From social welfare to democratic social policy .

On April 21 and 22, 1946, Fenske took part in the SED's founding convention in Berlin. From October 1, 1946, she headed the Labor and Social Welfare Department in the State Administration of Saxony as Ministerial Director.

Fenske died on December 29, 1946 after a traffic accident on the icy road between Radeberg and Königsbrück. Klemperer noted in his diary that death “comes very close to him, even closer than Fetscher's death at the time [...] The large, heart-aching eyes, the hoarse voice, the hot passion of Fenske. I won't forget them. ”On January 3, 1947, Fenske received a state funeral with a memorial service, which took place in the German Hygiene Museum . The cremation took place in the crematorium of the Tolkewitz urn grove . The urn should first be set up in the VVN urn grove on Palaisplatz; in the 1960s it was moved to the honor grove of the Heidefriedhof .

Honors

New hunter's house in Grillenburg, formerly Elsa-Fenske-Heim
Elsa Fenske residential park in Dresden

In the GDR Elsa Fenske gave names to numerous social institutions. The home in the former hunters' house of the Grillenburg hunting lodge was called “Elsa Fenske” convalescent home during the GDR era . In 1946 today's children's home "Haus Carola" in Hainewalde was given the name Elsa Fenskes.

In Dresden, the old people's and nursing home at Freiberger Strasse 18 has been called Elsa Fenskes since 1952. A sandstone bust of Fenske stands in the garden of the complex. The painter Gerhard Schiffel (1913–2002) created a portrait of Elsa Fenske in 1947, which hung in the Elsa Fenske home in Grillenburg and later on Gut Gamig .

Since 1956 a plaque commemorates her at Fenske's workplace in Dresden, the Dresden Stadthaus . The Elsa-Fenske-Strasse in Dresden, which runs alongside the town hall, was renamed Theaterstrasse in 1991. In Radeberg, Elsa-Fenske-Strasse bears her name.

literature

  • Emmy Koenen: Elsa Fenske-Classen. In: Guste Zörner (ed.): They fought for us too . Verlag der Frau, Leipzig 1967, pp. 83–90.
  • Fenske, Elsa. In: Museum for the History of the City of Dresden, Rudolf Förster (Hrsg.): Biographical notes on Dresden streets and squares, which are reminiscent of personalities from the labor movement, the anti-fascist resistance struggle and the socialist rebuilding . Museum for the History of the City of Dresden, Dresden 1976, p. 22.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Emmy Koenen: Elsa Fenske-Classen. In: Guste Zörner (ed.): They fought for us too . Verlag der Frau, Leipzig 1967, p. 87.
  2. ↑ Fenske, Elsa. In: Museum for the History of the City of Dresden, Rudolf Förster (Hrsg.): Biographical notes on Dresden streets and squares, which are reminiscent of personalities from the labor movement, the anti-fascist resistance struggle and the socialist rebuilding . Museum for the History of the City of Dresden, Dresden 1976, p. 22.
  3. ↑ a b Emmy Koenen: Elsa Fenske-Classen. In: Guste Zörner (ed.): They fought for us too . Verlag der Frau, Leipzig 1967, p. 88.
  4. ↑ a b Emmy Koenen: Elsa Fenske-Classen. In: Guste Zörner (ed.): They fought for us too . Verlag der Frau, Leipzig 1967, p. 89.
  5. ^ Entry on July 21, 1946. In: Walter Nowojski (Ed.):: Victor Klemperer: So I sit between all chairs. Diaries 1945–1949 . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1999, p. 278.
  6. ↑ Mike Schmeizner: Schools of dictatorship. The cadre training of the KPD / SED in Saxony 1945–1952 . (= Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarian Research. Reports and Studies No. 33). Sächsisches Druck- und Verlagshaus, Dresden 2001, pp. 16-17.
  7. ↑ a b Emmy Koenen: Elsa Fenske-Classen. In: Guste Zörner (ed.): They fought for us too . Verlag der Frau, Leipzig 1967, p. 84.
  8. ↑ Central Board of the SED, Women's Secretariat: Elsa Fenske †. In: New Germany. December 31, 1946, p. 2.
  9. ^ Elsa Fenske: From social welfare to democratic social policy. Work report of the Welfare Department at the City Council of Dresden. Council of the City of Dresden, News Office, Dresden 1946.
  10. ↑ Small Dresden Chronicle 1945–1949 . Institute and Museum for the History of the City of Dresden, Dresden 1971, p. 37.
  11. ↑ Entry on December 31, 1946. In: Walter Nowojski (Ed.):: Victor Klemperer: So I sit between all chairs. Diaries 1945–1949 . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1999, pp. 332–333.
  12. ^ Entries on January 2nd and 5th, 1947. In: Walter Nowojski (Ed.):: Victor Klemperer: So I sit between all chairs. Diaries 1945–1949 . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1999, pp. 334-335.
  13. ^ Entry on July 9, 1947. In: Walter Nowojski (Ed.):: Victor Klemperer: So I sit between all chairs. Diaries 1945–1949 . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1999, p. 406.
  14. ^ History of the children's home "Haus Carola" in Hainewalde. In: Saxon newspaper. July 8, 2006, p. 20.
  15. ^ Egg: “Elsa Fenske” nursing home accommodates 310 residents. In: Dresdner Latest News. September 18, 1997, p. 17.
  16. ↑ Thomas Morgenroth: Conversations with Professor Chantré in the pavilion. In: Saxon newspaper. May 19, 2014, p. 21.
  17. ^ Herbert Goldhammer, Karin Jeschke (Ed.): Dresden memorial sites for the victims of the Nazi regime . ddp goldenbogen, Dresden 2002, p. 48.
  18. ^ Elsa-Fenske-Strasse. In: Monika Zorn: Hitler's twice killed victims . Ahriman-Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 2001, p. 241.
personal data
SURNAME Fenske, Elsa
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fenske-Classen, Elsa; Classen, Elsa (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician and KPD functionary
DATE OF BIRTH April 20, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Aachen
DATE OF DEATH December 29, 1946
Place of death Dresden