Emmy Scholem

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Emmy Scholem , née Emmy Wiechelt (born December 20, 1896 in Hanover ; † June 14, 1970 there ) was a German KPD politician in the Weimar Republic . She was married to the KPD member of the Reichstag, Werner Scholem .

youth

Emmy Scholem was born out of wedlock to domestic help Emma Martha Rock and was adopted in 1906 by foreman August Wiechelt, who gave the child his name. Emmy grew up in the Hanoverian working class, only received elementary schooling, but has strived for further professional and personal training since her early youth. This may have been one of the reasons why she joined the Socialist Workers' Youth in 1911 , because this youth organization of social democracy combined socialist politics with specific educational offers for young people. Emmy learned the trade of a commercial clerk, later worked as an office clerk as well as a typist and secretary.

In the Hanoverian workers' youth around 1913 she met Werner Scholem , who was involved in educational work as a speaker. The two became engaged and married at the end of 1917. Werner and Emmy Scholem shared their rejection of the nationalistic course of social democracy in World War I , and both were involved in the anti-war movement.

Engagement in the USPD and KPD

Like many opposition Social Democrats, Emmy Scholem switched to the USPD , founded in 1917 , which rejected the majority social democracy's course of war. There she got involved with her husband, both of them supported the rapprochement of the USPD with the Communist International . After the USPD split into a right and left wing, Emmy and Werner Scholem voted at the unification party congress in 1920 to merge the left USPD with the KPD, which was founded in 1919. After moving to the KPD, Emmy Scholem worked as a secretary to the Central Committee, but lost this post when her husband was expelled from the party in 1926.

Persecution at the time of National Socialism

Despite her dismissal, Emmy Scholem remained a member of the KPD, but now devoted himself mainly to her profession. She became the main breadwinner of the family of four, which also included the daughters Edith Scholem and Renate Scholem , born in 1919 and 1923 . Her success in the job enabled Werner, who was unemployed due to exclusion from the party, to study law. However, the hoped-for career as a lawyer could not compete Werner: after the coming to power of the Nazis in 1933, he was arrested together with his wife.

Both were accused of “ decomposing military strength ”: as members of the so-called Hansa cell , they are said to have carried out communist propaganda in the Reichswehr on behalf of the KPD . Both always denied these allegations. The thesis that Marie Luise von Hammerstein , the daughter of Reichswehr General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord , was actually arrested has not yet been clarified . This is said to have stolen important military documents from her father's desk, which were then forwarded to the Soviet Union via Werner Scholem .

The allegations were never clarified, Werner Scholem even managed to obtain an acquittal in 1935 before the National Socialist People's Court . Nevertheless, after the trial he was deported to various concentration camps and murdered in Buchenwald concentration camp in 1940.

Escape to England

However, Emmy managed to escape together with their two daughters in 1934 after a leave of prison. With the help of SA member Heinz Hackebeil, she had managed to obtain exemption from custody, which she used to flee to Prague , from where she finally got to England via Paris. Hackebeil, which allegedly belonged to the Röhm wing of the SA, also went to England. In exile, Emmy Scholem lived in precarious circumstances. She initially ran an advertising agency and was only able to obtain a work permit for her actual job at a late stage.

Return to the Federal Republic of Germany

In 1949 Emmy Scholem returned to the Federal Republic of Germany and lived first in Hanover, then temporarily in Bad Wimpfen , before finally returning to the city of her childhood in 1963. After lengthy administrative acts, she received a pension as a politically persecuted person. In Hanover, she was very involved in the Jewish community and eventually converted to Judaism. She died on June 14, 1970 and was buried in the Bothfeld Jewish Cemetery.

Emmy Scholem's daughter, Renate Scholem, born in 1923, gained some fame as an actress in the 1950s under the name Renee Goddard .

literature

  • Michael Buckmiller and Pascal Nafe: The near expectation of communism - Werner Scholem. In: Judaism and Political Existence. Hannover 2000, pp. 61-82.
  • Ralf Hoffrogge : utopias on the edge. The correspondence between Werner Scholem and Gershom Scholem in the years 1914-1919 . In: Writing in War - Writing from War. Field post in the age of the world wars , Klartext-Verlag Essen 2011, pp. 429-440, ISBN 978-3-8375-0461-3 .
  • Ralf Hoffrogge: Emmy and Werner Scholem in the struggle between utopia and counter-revolution. In: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter , New Series Volume 65 (2011), pp. 157–176.
  • Ralf Hoffrogge: Werner Scholem - a political biography (1895-1940) , UVK Konstanz 2014, ISBN 978-3-86764-505-8
  • Mirjam Triendl-Zadoff : Among brothers - Gershom and Werner Scholem. From the utopias of youth to everyday Jewish life between the wars. In: Munich Contributions to Jewish History and Culture. Volume 1, Issue 2, 2007, pp. 56-66.
  • 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 , pp. 692-694 Online (Werner Scholem)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Buckmiller and Pascal Nafe: The near expectation of communism - Werner Scholem. In: Judaism and Political Existence. Hannover 2000, pp. 61-82.
  2. ^ Hermann Weber, Andreas Herbst: German Communists. Biographical Handbook 1918–1945. Karl Dietz Verlag, 2nd edition. Berlin 2008, p. 822.
  3. ↑ A novel version of this thesis can be found in: Hans Magnus Enzensberger : Hammerstein or Der Eigensinn , Frankfurt am Main 2008; on the historical facts cf. Buckmiller / Nafe
  4. ↑ See Michael Buckmiller and Pascal Nafe: Die Naherwartung des Kommunismus - Werner Scholem. In: Judaism and Political Existence. Hannover 2000, pp. 61-82
personal data
SURNAME Scholem, Emmy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wiechelt, Emmy (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (KPD)
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH June 14, 1970
Place of death Hanover