Helene Overlach

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Helene Overlach

Helene Overlach (born July 19, 1894 in Greiz ; † August 7, 1983 in East Berlin ) was a German politician (KPD).

Live and act

Empire and Weimar Republic (1894 to 1933)

Helene Overlach was born the daughter of a doctor. In her youth she attended secondary school and completed a commercial apprenticeship. She later worked as a typist, clerk, assistant nurse and trade teacher. After Overlach had been a member of the Communist Youth Association of Germany (KJVD) since 1919 , she joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1920 as a member of the Hamburg-Wasserkante local group . She also became a member of the Free Socialist Youth. From 1921 she took on more functionary activities for them: From 1921 she worked as a stenographer at the KPD headquarters in Berlin (among others with Wilhelm Pieck ) and in the Düsseldorf party office (with Walter Stoecker ). From 1924 she worked as an editor for the communist press. She wrote for the Ruhr Echo from 1924 to 1925 and was editor-in-chief of the Niedersächsische Arbeiterzeitung , the district organ of the KPD in Hanover , for a few months . From November 1925 she acted as second chairwoman and de facto head of the Red Women and Girls' Union (RFMB), of which Clara Zetkin was nominally first chairwoman.

In 1927 and again in 1929 Overlach was appointed to the Central Committee (ZK) of the KPD. Also in 1927 she took over the management of the women's department in the Central Committee, which she was to hold until 1931. In 1929 she finally became a candidate for the Politburo . From May 1928 to March 1933 she was a member of the Reichstag for her party as a member of constituency 22 (Düsseldorf-Ost) . In addition, there was membership in the Reich Committee of the League of Friends of the Soviet Union . From autumn 1931 to mid-1932 Overlach stayed for political training with the Comintern in the Soviet Union .

Helene Overlach was one of the few women in the Reichstag. The President of Parliament very rarely called a woman “to order” - this was what happened in the Reichstag session on October 14, 1913, after Ms. Overlach interjected during a speech by NSDAP MP Wilhelm Frick : “Workers' Murderer Party!”

time of the nationalsocialism

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists in the spring of 1933, Overlach, a well-known communist, saw herself exposed to persecution by the Nazi regime. From July 1933, she did illegal work for the Red Aid in the Ruhr area, especially in the communist underground movement in Essen . In the meantime, she had her only daughter brought to Switzerland. Overlach was arrested in December 1933. After several months of protective and pre- trial detention, she was sentenced in August 1934 to a three-year prison term for preparation for high treason , which she served (including pre- trial detention) in Ziegenhain, Gotteszell and the Aichach women's prison. In December 1936 Overlach was taken into " protective custody ". Until her release in May 1938, she was held in the Moringen and Lichtenburg concentration camps. In the next few years she worked under police supervision for the German Labor Front and in a business school.

On August 22, 1944, Overlach was arrested again as part of the Grid Action and taken to the Ravensbrück concentration camp , from which she was liberated in April 1945 by the Red Cross , which took her to Sweden. From June 1945 she lived in the southern Swedish city of Västerås .

Post-war period (1945 to 1983)

In 1946 Overlach returned from Sweden to occupied Germany, where she settled in the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ). In the next few years she was the director of a girls' vocational school. After this school was closed, she took on the post of main consultant for commercial vocational schools in the Berlin magistrate . She later became head of the department for the training of vocational school teachers at the Pädagogische Hochschule Berlin, where she was appointed professor in 1950. In the years 1952 to 1954 Overlach officiated as head of the institute for vocational school teacher training. She finally had to give up this position at the end of 1954 because of her serious heart disease.

Honors

tomb

Fonts

  • Our daily bread Give us today. A Word to Christian Women , 1930.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Neues Deutschland, August 15, 1964, p. 2
  2. ↑ Neues Deutschland, July 22, 1969, p. 2
  3. ↑ Neues Deutschland, September 13, 1974, p. 5

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Overlach, Helene
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (KPD), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Greiz
DATE OF DEATH August 7, 1983
Place of death East Berlin