Irma Rosenberg

Irma Rosenberg (born March 5, 1909 in Komotau , Bohemia , † January 2, 2000 in Vienna ) was a German actress and political activist of the German Social Democratic Workers' Party in the Czechoslovak Republic, first in Czechoslovakia until 1939 and then in exile in Britain .

Life

Irma Rosenberg began to appear in the city theater of Karlovy Vary at the age of eight . After an apprenticeship as a milliner, she continued her career as an actress with appearances in Karlsbad and Aussig , where she met Hans Rosenberg, who worked there as an assistant director and journalist, and whom she married in 1929. Since her husband lost his job because of his anti-Nazi sentiments, the two migrated to Austria in 1935 , where the two of them could not find a secure livelihood due to the economic crisis. So they returned to Reichenberg in Czechoslovakia in 1936 , where Hans Rosenberg became a member of the German Social Democratic Workers' Party in the Czechoslovak Republic and began to work for its party newspaper Der Freigeist . Irma Rosenberg appeared in Reichenberg in the social democratic cabaret of the 13 and played the main role in the plays by Bertolt Brecht staged by the social democratic educational institute . She herself joined the party in 1938.

After the annexation of the Sudetenland by National Socialist Germany, the couple fled to Prague , from where they went into exile in Great Britain in 1939 with the help of the Social Democratic Party. There Irma Rosenberg continued her commitment to social democratic cultural work. In December 1945 she returned to Czechoslovakia with her husband and the two joined the Czech Social Democrats . After the Communists came to power, the couple fled to the American Occupation Zone in Germany on May 10, 1948 , where Hans Rosenberg found a job with the US occupation authorities. In 1958 they emigrated to Austria and settled in Klosterneuburg near Vienna .

In memory of Irma Rosenberg, the Austrian Society for Contemporary History and the Department of Culture of the City of Vienna first announced the Irma Rosenberg Prize for research into the history of National Socialism in 2010 .

literature

• Irma Rosenberg: A committed life. Steinerdruck, Vienna 1991.