Herta Amm

Herta Meta Amm (born June 17, 1924 , † July 28, 1950 in Römhild ) was a victim of the GDR dictatorship. She died under circumstances that were not fully clarified while she was in custody at the headquarters of the border police in Römhild, where she was imprisoned on an unjustified allegation of espionage.

Life

Herta Amm was one of four children of a self-employed carpenter in Behrungen (today the municipality of Grabfeld ). The long-established family also ran a restaurant in town. After attending school, she lived with a family in Wiesbaden. After her two brothers were drafted into the armed forces, she returned to Behrungen. From 1945 on she lived with the family in Wiesbaden for almost four years before finally returning home in 1949. One of the brothers fell in World War II. Her older sister had a heart condition from birth, so that she was often solely responsible for the work in the restaurant from an early age.

After the end of the Second World War, like most of the residents of the border town of Behrungen, she crossed the barely protected zone border and from 1949 the inner German border several times. She kept in touch with the family in Wiesbaden. Her brother, who had returned after the war and who was the mayor of her hometown as a self-employed building contractor , criticized her because he feared for his reputation.

At the time, she is described as a sporty young woman who, according to her brother, looked happy on the outside, but was sad on the inside or even depressed . After an unhappy relationship, she no longer believed that she would ever be happy in her life.

Arrest and death

On July 19, 1950, Herta Amm came excitedly to her brother, whom she asked for advice on how to respond to a summons to the border command. He advised her to tell the truth there. When her brother brought warm clothes for his sister to the headquarters on the same day, he was not allowed to speak to her.

The files of the People's Police state that she suffered from heart problems while in custody and was therefore examined on July 26th by a doctor who prescribed her heart drops and declared her liable . During the first few days in detention, she refused to eat solid food, according to the People's Police officer. She drank and smoked a lot of water. Fellow inmates reported that there was a common occurrence during interrogation that inmates were starved to be compliant.

One of the inmates later reported that she had been subjected to "tough interrogations" at night under headlights, during which she had to stand in cold water, along with other abuse. This was ordered by the Soviet surveillance officer at the People's Police. She was accused of betraying official secrets after crossing the line of demarcation to the American zone. Furthermore, she is said to have helped a people's police stationed in Behrungen with the desertion .

On the later day of her death, July 28, 1950, after waiting for a week and asking about her whereabouts, Herta Amm's brother threatened to lodge a complaint with the Thuringian Prime Minister at the headquarters that morning . As a result, he was promised a release from prison the next day because the suspicion against Herta Amm had not been substantiated. Herta Amm herself is said to have eaten four slices of bread with jam and some bread with ham for breakfast that day. She ate a plate of cabbage soup for lunch and two more plates of it for dinner. After 7:30 p.m., she ate some bread and ham and had her heart drops. The closer looked as he included that she already was in bed, writhing, clutching the blanket and bit into it in this pain. When she was due to be picked up for interrogation at 8:15 p.m., she was dead in bed.

Investigation and cause of death

A doctor who was notified immediately could not determine the cause of death, whereupon the murder commission in Meiningen was notified. The criminal police arrived at the prison with a team of doctors at 2:30 am that night. No cause of death could be determined on site. After the autopsy at the forensic and medical institute in Jena, the result was that she had "symptoms of intoxication and internal bleeding on the neck". A new type of heart drug given for the first time the day before her death could have caused death due to changes in the blood. After a chemical examination, the autopsy report found that the cause of death was cardiac failure after an intermittent myocarditis .

Her brother was notified of the death on the morning of July 29th. He could only say goodbye to her corpse one day before the funeral, which took place on September 3rd of that year, as it had not been released beforehand and he did not know where it was. The corpse was in a condition that did not allow any conclusions to be drawn as to whether the deceased had been mistreated before she died. Her brother, who fled to the West himself in 1957, had to rely on rumors and speculations for his own investigations in view of the criminal investigation which ended with a natural death. A fellow prisoner testified that Herta Amm had died as a result of the abuse in custody.

Investigations after the fall of the Wall and the peaceful revolution were discontinued in September 1994 because no suspects could be found. There will therefore probably never be a final answer as to whether Herta Amm died of a heart defect that was undiscovered before her imprisonment or only of the abuse suffered there.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Herta Amm on the website of the SED State Research Association at the Free University of Berlin