Kathe Popall

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Käthe Popall (née Fürst , former Lübeck ; * February 15, 1907 in Bremen ; † May 23, 1984 in Bremen) was a Bremen politician of the KPD and the first woman in the Bremen Senate .

biography

Weimar Republic, National Socialism

Käthe Fürst was the daughter of the cigar maker Carl Fürst and grew up with five other siblings in a Bremen working-class household in Walle . She did an apprenticeship at the consumer association Vorwärts and was initially an employee of the association. In 1922 she became a member of the Socialist Workers' Youth and the SPD . In 1927 she joined the Communist Youth Association (KJVD) and in 1930 she joined the KPD. After she became unemployed in 1929, she became an employee and in 1930 works councilor at the jute spinning and weaving mill in Bremen . As a works council candidate on the list of the Red Trade Union Opposition (RGO) in 1930, she was reprimanded. At the KJVD she met Hans Lübeck . After her marriage, she was elected to the KPD under the name of Käthe Lübeck for only a few months in Bremen's citizenship at the end of 1930 , but she resigned her mandate on March 20, 1931, as she was appointed by her party outside Bremen.

In 1931 she went to Düsseldorf with her husband Hans Lübeck and worked in the RGO district management of the Lower Rhine , in summer 1931 she became an employee in the consumer department in Halle . At the beginning of 1932 she was organ manager in the women's department of the KJVD Halle. She and her husband came to Moscow in the autumn of 1932 , studying at the Lenin School was not possible because she did not pass the entrance examination. At the end of 1934 she went back to Germany to do illegal work. Käthe Lübeck was a member of the central government of the KPD in Berlin and organized women's work. On March 27, 1935, she was arrested along with Adolf Rembte , Robert Stamm and Max Maddalena . Her husband divorced her during this time. On June 4, 1937, the People's Court sentenced her to twelve years in prison . She spent the time of National Socialism in various prisons, most recently in the Ravensbrück concentration camp . After her liberation in Saxony, she returned to Bremen on foot in June 1945. In early 1946 she married the communist Reinhold Popall.

After the Second World War

After her return she joined the fighting community against fascism in Bremen . This organization, dominated by socialists and communists, was the only party-like organization in Bremen approved by the British occupation authorities. On April 17, 1946, Käthe Popall became a member of the appointed citizenship and in the first free election on October 13, 1946, was elected to the Bremen citizenship , where she became vice-president as a member of the KPD parliamentary group.

As early as July 23, 1945, Käthe Popall had been appointed the first female senator in Bremen's history by the military government. She was a member of Vagts Senate as a health senator . After the resignation of Erich Vagts , she was in Senate Kaisen I from August 1st . On November 28, 1946, she was elected to the Kaisen II Senate. Even under Wilhelm Kaisen she was the Senator for Health and later also responsible for welfare. She spoke out in favor of recognizing young people born in 1919 and later as not responsible for the Nazi dictatorship. In addition, she campaigned for a reform of Section 218 of the Criminal Code on termination of pregnancy and for the medical indication . As a refugee senator, she managed to accommodate this group of people more quickly.

Popall was an important woman in the Bremen women's movement . In 1946 she was with Agnes Heineken , Anna Stiegler , Anna Klara Fischer , and Irmgard Enderle a founding member and board member of the Bremen Women's Committee , a socially recognized, non-partisan and non-denominational umbrella organization of women's organizations from all areas of society in the state of Bremen. She was active on the executive board until 1951.

The Senate Kaisen II sitting on January 6, 1946. From left: Wilhelm Kaisen, Theodor Spitta, Kathe Popall. Standing from left: Hermann Mester, Hermann Apelt, Christian Paulmann, Willy Ewert, Adolf Ehlers, Wilhelm Nolting-Hauff, Alexander Lifschütz, Emil Theil

After the general election on October 12, 1947, the strengthened Bremen Democratic People's Party (BDV) (after 1951 FDP ) refused to enter into a coalition with the KPD. On January 22, 1948, Popall resigned as a senator. Mayor Wilhelm Kaisen paid tribute to her work: "If, for the first time in the history of the Bremen Senate, there was a woman among the elected, this woman passed her test with flying colors." She remained a member of Bremen's citizenship until 1959 and was a member of the Bremen parliament until the ban of the KPD in 1956 to the KPD parliamentary group.

After the West German KPD came increasingly under the influence of Stalinism , a party expulsion procedure was initiated against Käthe and Reinhold Popall in 1952. Reinhold Popall was therefore expelled from the party at the end of 1952. Käthe Popall was asked to part with him. The process of exclusion was not continued in 1953 because of the resistance against her at the party base. Their membership ended in 1956 when the KPD was banned.

The couple moved to Ottweiler in Saarland in 1967 , where their daughter was trained. There she was active in the workers' welfare and nature lovers . Despite some reservations, she joined the SPD . In 1982 the President of the Senate, Hans Koschnick, paid tribute to them at a reception in Bremen's town hall . After her husband died in 1981, she returned to Bremen in 1984 and died there shortly afterwards.

Käthe-Popall-Straße in the Bremen-Neustadt district was named after her in 1993.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Frank Thomas Gatter, Mechthild Müser (Ed.): Bremen on foot. 20 forays through history and the present. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 1987, ISBN 3-87975-421-7 , p. 97.
  2. ↑ Frank Thomas Gatter, Mechthild Müser (Ed.): Bremen on foot. 20 forays through history and the present. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 1987, ISBN 3-87975-421-7 , p. 97.
  3. ↑ Lübeck, Käthe. In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst: German Communists. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. Dietz, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-320-02044-7 , p. 469 f. (on-line)
  4. ↑ Arne Andersen: “Better to die in the fire of revolution than to perish on the dung heap of democracy!” The KPD in Bremen from 1928 to 1933. A contribution to Bremen's social history. Minerva publication, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-597-10263-8 , p. 347.
  5. ^ Review of the book by Peter Alheit and Jörg Wollenberg : Käthe Popall. A difficult political life. In the Bremen yearbook of the historical society. Volume 65. Hauschild, Bremen 1987, p. 161 ff.
  6. ^ Hendrik Bunke: The KPD in Bremen. 1945–1968. Papyrossa -Verlag, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-89438-230-9 , pp. 137–148 ( online version: PDF; 3.8 MB ( memento of September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ))

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Popall, Kathe
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Prince, Kathe; Lübeck, Käthe
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (KPD), Member of the Bundestag and first female senator in Bremen
DATE OF BIRTH February 15, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH May 23, 1984
Place of death Bremen