Kathe Larsch

Katharina "Käthe" Larsch (born August 27, 1901 in Suszno near Lemberg , Austria-Hungary , † May 29, 1935 in Düsseldorf ) was a German communist and resistanceist against National Socialism .

resume

Käthe Larsch was born as Katharina Lambert in Galicia and grew up in Beelitz near Berlin as the fifth of seven children of a Protestant family after the mother left her husband with the children. The Lambert family later moved to the Ruhr area , where Katharina Lambert, who worked as a saleswoman or maid, married Rudolf Larsch in 1920 . By 1930 the couple, who lived in Essen, had five children, three sons and two daughters, one of whom died as an infant.

In 1924 Käthe Larsch joined the KPD , of which her husband had been a member for two years. According to later findings of the Gestapo , Rudolf Larsch was a "very intelligent man who was penetrated to the core by his communist views and goals" and who had "permanently held high positions in the party". What professional activity Larsch pursued in the following years is not known, he is said to have worked for a time as a tram conductor; the family lived steadily on the poverty line. After the “ seizure of power ” by the National Socialists in January 1933, he went underground, but was arrested on November 3, 1933 and charged with “preparing for high treason”. After nine months of pre-trial detention, he was sentenced to three years in prison and in January 1935 transferred to the “ Stapeler Moor work detachment ”. His family had to leave their home and move to a smaller, filthy place. The family received financial support from comrades .

In 1935, Käthe Larsch was arrested by the Gestapo. Their apartment had been used by members of the KPD as a meeting point and for other conspiratorial activities such as the reproduction of leaflets; she is also said to have distributed leaflets herself. Serious head injuries were inflicted on her during interrogation, presumably with a manslaughter . As a result, she was admitted to the psychiatric department of the city hospital in Essen on May 22nd and from there to the state hospital in Düsseldorf (popularly known as “Grafenberg” for short). In the doctor's reports there, she was attested to having “appearances of mental confusion” and “disorientation”. Nevertheless, the abused woman continued to be interrogated in order to find out the names of other resistance fighters, albeit in vain. She died a week later and the official cause of death was "acute heart failure". She was buried in the prison cemetery, where her grave is still located. The imprisoned Rudolf Larsch made a petition to the Essen district court, saying that the death of his wife was "possibly the fault of some department". However, a preliminary investigation was closed after ten days.

Fate of her family

The four Larsch children were housed separately by sex in the Wilhelm Augusta children's home in Essen , where the daughter Wera in particular was harassed by the home manager, and could only keep in touch with her father by letter.

With a brief interruption, Rudolf Larsch remained in custody until the end of the Second World War . In 1936 he was brought to Münster for ostensible release, but was then taken into “ protective custody ” again. From 1937 to 1939 he was in Buchenwald concentration camp , then, after a brief release, until 1945 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp . On a death march towards Schwerin , he managed to escape with the help of an SS man . In the course of the year the family reunited, but the consequences of trauma and years of separation remained noticeable. In 1947, through the mediation of the KPD, the family moved to Bielefeld , where Rudolf Larsch married a party member who, like him, had survived a stay in a concentration camp. Wera Larsch fought for reparations for years and was ultimately awarded the sum of 5,000 marks, which was doubled in 1965 following an amendment to the law. Rudolf Larsch died of a heart attack on February 19, 1960 while traveling on a bus in Bielefeld.

Honors

Memorial plaque in Essen's Seumannstrasse

Street sign and information sign of the residents to the different address

For around 20 years there has been a memorial plaque for Käthe Larsch on Seumannstrasse in Essen, where the Larsch family lived.

In December 2011, at the request of the Greens, a street in the new university district in Essen was named after Käthe Larsch. This was preceded by some bitter debates about whether a street in Essen should be named after a communist. The applicants for the street naming justified their suggestion by stating that “every resistance against National Socialism deserves a right to respect and memory. For this memory, the individual's fate must be honored, regardless of whether this person justified his resistance to Nazi terror in a communist, socialist, religious or bourgeois-humanist manner ”. The naming of the street should also show “how National Socialist injustice not only destroyed individual lives, but also influenced several generations of survivors”. The nomination was finally decided with the votes of the Greens, the SPD and the Left in the Council. The owner of the senior citizens' residential complex Peter-Reise-Haus on the street , the Gesellschaft für Sozialedienste Essen mbH , was not prepared to provide a room for the inauguration ceremony of the street and refuses to allow Käthe-Larsch- Use street as address.

literature

• Ernst Schmidt: The cruel murder of Käthe Larsch and the fate of her children . In: The same: lights in darkness. Resistance and persecution in Essen 1933-1945 . Klartext Verlag, Essen 2003, ISBN 3-89861-280-5 . Pp. 120-127.

Web links

• The cruel murder of Käthe Larsch. tenhumbergreinhard.de, accessed on September 21, 2014 . 
• Larsch family. Youth! 1918–1945, accessed September 21, 2014 . 

Individual evidence

1. ^ Klaus Gerstendorff: On the inauguration of Käthe-Larsch-Strasse on December 30, 2011 in Essen ad Ruhr. (No longer available online.) Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen Essen, December 30, 2011, pp. 17f. , archived from the original on September 24, 2014 ; accessed on September 22, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Käthe Larsch - "I noticed how one dragged Mrs. Larsch out of the room across the floor." Youth! 1918–1945, accessed September 22, 2014 . 
3. ^ Klaus Gerstendorff: On the inauguration of Käthe-Larsch-Strasse on December 30, 2011 in Essen ad Ruhr. (No longer available online.) Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen Essen, December 30, 2011, p. 20 , archived from the original on September 24, 2014 ; accessed on September 22, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ The contacts with the father - "I think the children have never been as good as they are now." Youth! 1918–1945, accessed September 22, 2014 . 
5. ↑ post-war period. Youth! 1918–1945, accessed September 22, 2014 . 
6. ↑ Making amends? - “Who can really empathize with how you feel?” Youth! 1918–1945, accessed September 22, 2014 . 
7. ^ Klaus Gerstendorff: On the inauguration of Käthe-Larsch-Strasse on December 30, 2011 in Essen ad Ruhr. (No longer available online.) Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen Essen, December 30, 2011, p. 29 , archived from the original on September 24, 2014 ; accessed on September 22, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
8. ^ A street for Käthe Larsch. lokalkompass.de, accessed on September 22, 2014 . 
9. ↑ ^{a b} Street naming after Käthe Larsch. (No longer available online.) Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen, July 7, 2011, archived from the original on September 24, 2014 ; accessed on September 22, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
10. ↑ Frank Stenglein: Street naming becomes a political issue in Essen. WAZ, May 19, 2011, accessed September 22, 2014 . 
11. ↑ ^{a b} Käthe-Larsch-Straße - “Put a memorial to a KPD party member”? Youth! 1918–1945, accessed September 22, 2014 . 
12. ↑ The new "Käthe-Larsch-Straße" in the university district. Essen stands across, accessed on September 22, 2014 . 
13. ^ Walter Wandtke: Remembrance of National Socialist injustice: Inauguration of Käthe-Larsch-Straße. lokalkompass.de, accessed on October 11, 2014 .