Gertrud Meyer (author)

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Gertrud Meyer , later also Gertrud Meyer-Plock (born January 21, 1898 in Cologne , † December 21, 1975 in Hamburg ) was a German anti-fascist and author.

Life

Gertrud Meyer was the daughter of a social democratic craftsman and an unskilled worker. She had five siblings. She spent her childhood and youth in Hamburg and in 1912 became a member of the Socialist Workers' Youth . Since her father died early and her mother was seriously ill, she had to live in the orphanage for a time. For financial reasons, she was unable to realize her dream of becoming a teacher. After all, she was employed as a maid and worked in a munitions factory during the First World War . In 1918 she was a member of the Workers 'and Soldiers' Council in Cologne.

From 1919 she became involved in the labor movement and in 1920 became a member of the KPD . In 1920 she married the architect Kurt Meyer (1888–1942), with whom she had a son. With her husband she was involved in the newspaper Socialist Republic . From 1924 to 1925 she was a city councilor in Cologne.

From 1930 she lived with her husband and their son in Moscow . She worked in an electrical factory and studied politics from 1933. She and her husband were arrested in 1936 by members of the NKVD . Her husband was interned and their son was taken to a children's home. She herself was deported from the Soviet Union to Germany in September 1938. After arriving in Germany, Gestapo officers immediately arrested her. She was then sentenced, taken to the Cottbus penitentiary and only released from prison in September 1940.

Ehrenfeld Geschwister-Scholl-Foundation

Meyer then had to do forced labor as a laboratory assistant at the Valvo works in Hamburg-Lokstedt . Meyer belonged to the Bästlein-Jacob-Abshagen group and was involved in her company for the starving Soviet female forced laborers, because she knew Russian. In February 1944 Meyer was arrested at her place of work and transferred to the Fuhlsbüttel police prison. From there, after twelve months, she was taken to the pre- trial detention center , from which she was only released on May 26, 1945.

After the end of the Second World War , she worked as a clerk for the committee of former political prisoners and finally for the VVN-BdA . Meyer supported the preparations for the war crimes trials. She built up an anti-fascist archive of the resistance, devoted herself to resistance research and published in this context.

She died in Hamburg in 1975 and was buried in the Ohlsdorf cemetery in the area of ​​the Ehrenfeld of the Geschwister-Scholl-Stiftung , grid square Bn 73 No. 225 (to the left of the path, third from last block: fifth row, fifth stone), together with the Austrian resistance fighter Hans Schwarz .

Fonts

  • It's about a children's home , Oettinger, Hamburg 1947.
  • Proof units . Edited with the working group BB 999. Hamburg 1948/1968.
  • The voice of the other Germany . Association of those persecuted by the Nazi regime - Bund der Antifaschisten, Hamburg 1949.
  • Together with Ursel Hochmuth : List of the dead Hamburg resistance fighters and persecuted persons 1933–1945 , 1968
  • Together with Ursel Hochmuth: Streiflichter from the Hamburg resistance. 1933-1945 . Röderberg-Verlag, Frankfurt 1980, reprint of the 1969 edition, ISBN 3-87682-036-7 .
    • Night over Hamburg. Reports and documents 1933–1945 . Library of Resistance, Röderberg-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1971. (Supplementary volume on Hochmuth / Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg Resistance. 1933–1945 )
  • Together with Gerda Zorn (ed.): Women against Hitler. Reports from the resistance 1933–1945 , Röderberg, Frankfurt am Main 1974

literature

  • Herbert Diercks : Freedom lives. Resistance and persecution in Hamburg 1933–1945. Texts, photos and documents. Published by the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name in the Hamburg City Hall from January 22 to February 14, 2010
  • Gudrun Wedel (Ed.): Autobiographies of women: a lexicon . Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-412-20585-0
  • Mathijs C. Wiessing (ed.): Gertrud Meyer, the woman with the green hair / memories from and to G. Meyer , VSA - Our story, Hamburg 1978, ISBN 3-87975-153-6 . ( Book title )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e f Gudrun Wedel (Ed.): Autobiographies of women: a lexicon , Cologne 2010, p. 564f.
  2. ^ A b Gertrud Meyer: Night over Hamburg. Reports and documents 1933-1945. Library of Resistance, Röderberg-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1971, biography on the back of the cover
  3. a b c d Herbert Diercks: Freedom lives. Resistance and persecution in Hamburg 1933–1945. , Hamburg 2010, p. 65
  4. Hamburger Friedhöfe ( Memento of the original from September 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.friedhof-hamburg.de
  5. Gertrud Meyer (1898-1975) at genealogy.net , not to be confused with pillow stone Gertrud Meyer, geb. Ott (1914-2006)