Friedel Apelt

Friedel Malter on July 22, 1950 on the III. Party conference of the SED in Berlin

Frieda Apelt , nee Frieda Anna Charlotte Raddünz , first marriage Frieda Franz , second marriage Frieda Malter , nickname Friedel (born November 1, 1902 in Breslau ; † December 12, 2001 in Berlin-Friedrichshagen ) was a German politician ( KPD / SED ) and union official . During the Nazi era , she resisted National Socialism and was imprisoned in several concentration camps.

Life

Raddünz, whose father was a typesetter, completed an apprenticeship as a weaver after attending elementary school and worked as a domestic worker a. a. working in her hometown. In 1925 she married Adolf Franz, a miner and KPD local group leader. Frieda Franz joined the German Textile Workers Association (DTV) in 1925, the KPD in 1926 and the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO) in 1929 . From 1926 to 1933 Franz was a member of the Provincial Parliament of the Province of Lower Silesia . In addition, she was briefly a member of the KPD sub-district leadership in Waldenburg . At the KPD district leadership in Silesia she was from 1930 to 1933 women leader in Breslau. She worked for the KPD from April 1932 in the Landtag of the Free State of Prussia and was the youngest of 31 MPs of the KPD.

After the seizure of power by the Nazis , she continued her political work continued in illegality. She was arrested in June 1933 and sentenced to three years in prison for “preparation for high treason” . Franz was initially imprisoned in Jauer prison and was then sent to the Moringen concentration camp and from there transferred to the Lichtenburg concentration camp. After her release from the concentration camp, she worked for Edeka from 1938 and after further training as a clerk in Wroclaw. The release from prison was subject to the divorce from her husband, who had fled to Moscow, where he presumably died of typhus in 1942 . On August 22, 1944, Franz was arrested again for illegal political activity and sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp .

In Ravensbruck Franz was in the position of a function inmate of the inmate clerk camp commander . Franz was deployed in external concentration camps, such as the Auer works in Oranienburg and the Daimler-Benz works in Genshagen . In the course of the "evacuation" of the concentration camp, Malter was able to escape from a death march on May 4, 1945 .

“We were free. With three more from my group we arrived in Wittenberge. I reported to the town hall, actually only to get ration cards. I was told that I couldn't go back to my hometown of Wroclaw anyway. The commandant instructed me to take over the nutrition office. I refuse for now. I am a weaver and know nothing about administrative work ... You should make sure that people don't starve to death. And I'll help you with that. Like so many others, I became an activist from the very beginning. In July 1945 we began forming local groups of the KPD in Wittenberge. I gave the lecture in several founding events ... "

- Friedel Malter : Helmut Bauer: Portrait Friedel Malter - "Sometimes there is still something missing in life" on www.ravensbrueckblaetter.de

In 1946 she married Andreas Malter. However, the marriage lasted only three years. After the war she was the women's secretary at the Central Committee of the KPD and was a member of the Central Women's Committee. After the forced unification of the SPD and KPD , Malter became a member of the SED in 1946 . She co-founded the Democratic Women's Association of Germany (DFD) and was a member of the DFD's federal executive committee from 1948 to 1955. From 1957 to 1960 she was a member of the executive committee of the DFD. From 1946 to 1989 Malter was a member of the federal executive committee of the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB) and from 1946 to 1950 he was also a member of the executive federal executive committee of the FDGB. In addition, she was women's secretary at the FDGB from 1946 to 1948. Until 1954 she was also a member of the presidium of the FDGB federal executive committee. The People's Chamber and their precursors People's Council was one Malter from 1948 until 1954th In the meantime, Malter was secretary for all-German work from 1950 to 1951. From 1949 to May 1956, Malter held the post of State Secretary and First Deputy Minister in the GDR Ministry of Labor. From May 1959 to 1989, Malter was a chair of the GDR Committee for Human Rights .

Malter belonged to the VVN from 1947 and from 1953 to the successor organization in the GDR committee of anti-fascist resistance fighters . In November 1952 she married Fritz Apelt . Apelt, who spent the last years of her life in the Clara-Zetkin-Heim retirement home in Friedrichshagen, took part in the 50th anniversary of the Ravensbrück memorial and in 1999 was committed to making reparations to former prisoners through Daimler-Benz.

Awards

• Clara Zetkin Medal (1955)
• Patriotic Order of Merit in Silver (1956)
• Labor Banner (1962)
• Karl Marx Order (1977)
• Gold Star of Friendship of Nations (1982)

literature

• Siegfried Mielke (Ed.): Trade unionists in the Nazi state: persecution, resistance, emigration. Klartext Verlag: Essen 2008 ISBN 978-3-89861-914-1 .
• Dieter Dowe , Karlheinz Kuba, Manfred Wilke (ed.): FDGB-Lexikon - function, structure, cadre and development of a mass organization of the SED (1945-1990). Wroclaw 2009, ISBN 978-3-86872-240-6 . Entry Frieda (Friedel) Malter
• Bärbel Maul: Female academics in the post-war period - A comparison between the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR , Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-593-37131-6 .
• Helmuth Bauer: You can't get rid of inner images. The women in the Daimler-Benz Genshagen satellite camp . Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-940938-88-6 . (Detailed autobiography by Friedel Malter; recorded from interviews between 1994–1998)
• Andreas Herbst :  Malter, Frieda (Friedel) . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Franz (Malter), Frieda . In: 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 .

Web links

Commons : Friedel Malter  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Friedel Apelt in the catalog of the German National Library
• Frieda (Friedel) Malter / Apelt's curriculum vitae on the website of the Independent Commission of Historians for Research into the History of the Reich Ministry of Labor 1933–1945

Individual evidence

1. ^ Siegfried Mielke (ed.): Trade unionists in the Nazi state: persecution, resistance, emigration. Klartext Verlag: Essen 2008 ISBN 978-3-89861-914-1 . P. 62.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Dieter Dowe, Karlheinz Kuba, Manfred Wilke (ed.): FDGB-Lexikon , Breslau 2009, entry: Malter, Friedel
3. ^ Siegfried Mielke (ed.): Trade unionists in the Nazi state: persecution, resistance, emigration. Klartext Verlag: Essen 2008 ISBN 978-3-89861-914-1 . P. 64.
4. ^ Siegfried Mielke (ed.): Trade unionists in the Nazi state: persecution, resistance, emigration. Klartext Verlag: Essen 2008 ISBN 978-3-89861-914-1 . P. 66.
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Helmut Bauer: "Portrait Friedel Malter -" Sometimes there is still something missing in life "" at www.ravensbrueckblaetter.de
6. ^ Siegfried Mielke (ed.): Trade unionists in the Nazi state: persecution, resistance, emigration. Klartext Verlag: Essen 2008 ISBN 978-3-89861-914-1 . P. 69.
7. ↑ Minutes No. 22/56 of the meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED on May 9, 1956 - BArch DY 30 / J IV 2/2/476.
8. ↑ Federal foundation for coming to terms with the SED dictatorship : Apelt, Fritz