Hilde Radusch

Memorial plaque , Eisenacher Strasse 15 in Berlin-Schöneberg

Hilde Radusch's grave, 2009

Hilde Radusch (born November 6, 1903 in Altdamm near Stettin , † August 2, 1994 in Berlin ) was a German anti-fascist resistance fighter , communist and social democratic politician, women's rights activist and lesbian activist.

Life

Hilde Radusch grew up in Weimar . At the age of 18, she came to Berlin alone in 1921, where she started training as a daycare worker in the Pestalozzi-Froebel-Haus in Berlin. She joined the Communist Youth Association of Germany . Since she could not find a job as a communist daycare worker, she went to the post office as a telephone operator in 1923 and soon became chairman of the works council . In the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition , she took over the leadership of the Agitprop department and of the trade union newspaper “Post und Staat”. Because women were not allowed to become members of the Red Front Fighters Association , she initiated the founding of the Red Women and Girls Association in 1925 and wrote articles for its newspaper, the Frauenwacht . From 1929 to 1932 she was a city ​​councilor for the Berlin KPD .

After the transfer of power to the National Socialists , she was taken into “ protective custody ” on April 6, 1933 because of her KPD work and was imprisoned in Barnimstrasse women's prison. Together with the others, she was able to enforce better prison conditions for the women. At the end of September 1933 she was released with a number of other "political figures" and moved to Berlin-Mitte. As a former KPD member she could no longer work at the post office, she went to Siemens as a worker and did illegal party work in the company.

In 1939 she met her later friend Else Klopsch ("Eddy"), with whom she ran a small restaurant in Berlin's Scheunenviertel from 1941 . This later served as a shelter for "illegals". In August 1944, a police officer who was friends with Eddy warned her of her imminent arrest as part of the so-called Operation Grid . So she was able to go into hiding with her partner in Prieros , where they lived hidden in a gazebo until the end of the war . At the time of the liberation of Berlin by the Red Army , she was almost starving. She also contracted rheumatism and therefore had to apply for early retirement in the mid-1950s.

Immediately after the end of the war, Hilde Radusch took part in the reconstruction. From June 1945 to February 1946 she worked for the Schöneberg District Office in the Victims of Fascism Department . In 1946 she was one of the initiators of the “ Save the Children ” campaign. In the same year, however, there were conflicts between the communist and her party, as a result of which Radusch left the KPD and at the same time excluded it. She then joined the SPD in 1948 and ran a junk shop with Eddy until the death of her partner Eddy in 1960 was another heavy blow for Radusch.

Hilde Radusch has been involved in the new women's movement since the 1970s. She was a co-founder of L74, a Berlin group of older lesbians, and in 1978 the women's research, education and information center (FFBIZ).

Hilde Radusch is buried in the Old St. Matthew Cemetery in Berlin-Schöneberg . This has been classified as an honorary grave of the city of Berlin since July 2016 .

Commemoration

In 2012, 18 years after her death, the Berlin district of Tempelhof-Schöneberg remembered Radusch's life and work. On the corner of Eisenacher Strasse and Winterfeldtstrasse, three memorial plaques dedicated to Radusch were created as the first Berlin memorial for a lesbian woman persecuted during the Nazi era .

literature

• Active Museum Association: Put in Front of the Door - Berlin City Councilors and Magistrate Members persecuted under National Socialism 1933–1945 , Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-00-018931-9 , page 316.
• Claudia Schoppmann: The time of masking. Life stories of lesbian women in the “Third Reich” . Orlanda Frauenverlag, Berlin, 1993, ISBN 978-3-922166-94-8 . Online: Hilde Radusch (1903-1994) on online project Lesbian History.
• Radusch, Hilde . 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 .
• Ilona Scheidle: A jewel in women's lesbian history on the Heinrich Böll Foundation's website.
• Annika Viebig: Hilde Radusch . In: Digital German Women's Archive . ( digitales-deutsches-frauenarchiv.de ).

Web links

Commons : Hilde Radusch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Hilde Radusch in the catalog of the German National Library
• Hilde Radusch on the website of the Federal Magnus Hirschfeld Foundation
• Hilde Radusch in the digital German women's archive
• Memorial for Hilde Radusch
• Honoring a passionate contemporary on the website of the SPD-BVV parliamentary group
• Spinnboden: Inauguration of the memorial site on June 22, 2012
• Miss Marple's sisters: Hilde Radusch (1903-1994)
• The estate of Hilde Radusch is in the FFBIZ - The Feminist Archive .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ efeu-ev.de: Information memorial folder women (list of names) , picture of the grave site (bottom right) Retrieved on November 5, 2012.
2. ↑ Memorial for a persecuted lesbian woman . Berliner Morgenpost dated June 21, 2012