Greta Kuckhoff

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Greta Kuckhoff (1947)
Greta Kuckhoff (right) at the Globke trial in 1963. Next to her, Eslanda Goode Robeson, Paul Robeson's wife .

Greta Kuckhoff (born Lorke; born December 14, 1902 in Frankfurt (Oder) , † November 11, 1981 in Wandlitz ) was a German resistance fighter in the Rote Kapelle group against National Socialism . In the GDR she was President of the German Central Bank from 1950 to 1958 , the predecessor of the State Bank of the GDR.

Life

After training as a teacher in 1924, Greta Kuckhoff began studying sociology and economics at the universities of Berlin and Würzburg . From 1927 to 1929 she studied at the University of Wisconsin – Madison , where she met Arvid and Mildred Harnack . Between 1930 and 1932 she worked for the corporation lawyer Rosendorf in Zurich , from 1933 secretary to Karl Mannheim at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main . The first oppositional activities took place at this time. In the same year Greta met the writer Adam Kuckhoff , whom she married in 1937. Until 1942 she also worked as a translator for the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda . In 1939 she worked as a German co-translator on the English translation of Hitler's Mein Kampf , which appeared in August 1939. She had linked it with the hope of being able to educate the British public about Hitler.

She had first contacts with the couple Harro and Libertas Schulze-Boysen since the mid-1930s . Greta Kuckhoff was arrested on September 12, 1942 in connection with the Gestapo's investigations into the Schulze-Boysen / Harnack district and her husband, and sentenced to death on February 3, 1943 for “aiding and abetting high treason and failure to report an incident of espionage”. The death penalty was waived on May 4, but in September at a second hearing before the Reich Court Martial it was converted into ten years of prison and the deprivation of civil rights for "aiding in the preparation of a treasonous enterprise and favoring the enemy". It was taken to Waldheim prison . A month earlier, her husband was executed in Plötzensee as a member of the Red Orchestra. On May 8, 1945, the Red Army liberated Greta Kuckhoff and other prisoners from Waldheim.

Greta Kuckhoff joined the KPD in 1945 and was appointed head of the office for the denazified and ownerless businesses in Berlin. From April 1946 she was a member of the SED due to the compulsory unification of the SPD and KPD to form the SED .

Together with Adolf Grimme and Günther Weisenborn , she initiated a trial in September 1945 against the former Supreme Court Judge Manfred Roeder , who had represented the indictment against the members of the Red Orchestra before the Reich Court Martial . The proceedings against Roeder under Control Council Act No. 10 were discontinued by the Lüneburg public prosecutor's office in 1951, which, in its 1732-page final report, found no evidence that the proceedings against the Rote Kapelle represented a crime against humanity.

From 1946 Kuckhoff worked in various economic committees. She was a member of the first and second German People's Council and from 1954 to 1958 a member of the People's Chamber . From 1950 to 1958 she was President of the German Central Bank . Like her predecessor, Willy Huhn, Kuckhoff was not prepared to accept technically questionable monetary policy decisions by the SED or the GDR Council of Ministers without being contradicted. After the exchange of money in October 1957, in the preparation of which she had apparently not been involved, she resigned as president of the DNB in ​​April 1958, also for "health reasons". After being released from this position, she worked in the GDR Peace Council . From 1964 she was Vice-President of the Peace Council of the GDR and a member of the World Peace Council . In 1972 she published her memoir entitled Vom Rosenkranz zur Rote Kapelle .

On May 7, 2012, a stumbling block by the artist Gunter Demnig was laid for Greta Kuckhoff in her native Frankfurt (Oder) .

family

Greta was the third wife of Adam Kuckhoff , with whom she lived from 1933. They married in 1937 and had one child: Ule Kuckhoff, who later became the editor of the current camera .

Awards

tomb

Honors

The Kuckhoffstraße in Berlin-Niederschönhausen in the Pankow district is named after her and Adam Kuckhoff. There are other Kuckhoffstrasse in Aachen (these are named after her husband Adam Kuckhoff), Leipzig and Lützen . There is a Kuckhoffplatz in Magdeburg . The municipal vocational school Crivitz was also named after “Dr. Greta Kuckhoff ”.

Works

  • Red Chapel. In: Aufbau , Aufbau-Verlag , Berlin (East) 1948, Issue 1, pp. 30–37
  • From the rosary to the red chapel. A life report, New Life, Berlin 1972, etc.

literature

Web links

Commons : Greta Kuckhoff  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John Murphy: Why did my grandfather translate Mein Kampf? , BBC News, Jan. 13, 2015
  2. ^ Heinz Höhne : Password: Director. The story of the Red Chapel. Frankfurt 1970, pp. 15-18
  3. ^ Heinrich Grosse: Prosecutor of resistance fighters and apologist of the Nazi regime after 1945 - Judge-Martial Manfred Roeder . (PDF; 130 kB) In: Kritische Justiz 2005, p. 48. Retrieved on January 19, 2014.
  4. ↑ Federal Archives Sign DN 6
  5. ↑ See Broosch, p. 181. See also SAPMO -BArch, DY 30 / J IV 2/2 A - 614, p. 55f.
  6. ^ "German Left" on the Way of the Cross From the memoirs of a resistance fighter. In: Die Zeit , No. 13/1973
  7. ↑ Kuckhoffplatz at OpenStreetMap
  8. ↑ Online at mythoselser.de with an introduction by Peter Koblank. Retrieved January 11, 2014.
personal data
SURNAME Kuckhoff, Greta
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lorke, Greta (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German resistance fighter and President of the State Bank of the GDR, MdV
DATE OF BIRTH December 14, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt (Oder)
DATE OF DEATH November 11, 1981
Place of death Wandlitz