Liselotte Herrmann

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Liselotte Herrmann (called Lilo , born June 23, 1909 in Berlin , † June 20, 1938 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was a communist resistance fighter during the Nazi era .

Life

Memorial plaque , Freiaplatz, in Berlin-Lichtenberg

The daughter of an engineer and his wife had a bourgeois - liberal upbringing and after graduating from high school in Berlin-Charlottenburg and doing an internship in a chemical company in 1929, she first began studying chemistry at the Technical University of Stuttgart . In 1931 she moved to study the biology of the University of Berlin . As a student she joined the Socialist Student Union , then the Communist Youth Association of Germany and, as a student, also worked in the Red Student Groups in Stuttgart and Berlin. Since November 1, 1931, she was a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD).

In the spring of 1933 she is said to have signed an "appeal for the defense of democratic rights and freedoms at the Berlin University" that had not been found and was expelled from the university on July 11, 1933 for "communist activity" with about 100 other students and from any further studies locked out. Since then she has worked in the resistance against the National Socialist dictatorship in Germany.

She took a job as a nanny and worked in structures of the underground communist and left-wing socialist resistance. Liselotte's son Walter was born on May 15, 1934; It was not until 1991 that it became known that his father was Fritz Rau , a Stuttgart KPD functionary who had been beaten to death in December 1933 in Berlin-Moabit prison . From September 1934 Herrmann lived again in Stuttgart , where she worked as a stenographer in her father's engineering office.

Without her parents' knowledge, she re-established contact with the illegally operating KPD. From her office she did paperwork for the underground KPD district leader Stefan Lovasz (1901–1938) and obtained information about secret armaments projects, which she passed on to contacts of the KPD resistance in Switzerland .

On December 7, 1935, Liselotte Herrmann was arrested by the Württemberg Political Police , which later became the Stuttgart State Police Headquarters . She remained in custody for 19 months . Her son grew up with his grandparents ever since. On June 12, 1937, Herrmann was sentenced to death together with Josef Steidle and Artur Göritz by the 2nd Senate of the People's Court in Stuttgart for treason committed in unity with preparation for high treason . The KPD district leader Stefan Lovasz was also convicted of "preparing to commit high treason under aggravating circumstances". During his detention in Stuttgart, Herrmann was with Lina Haag and she was in contact with Maria Wiedmaier . After a year in the Barnimstrasse women's prison in Berlin , she and those sentenced to death with her were transferred to the Berlin-Plötzensee prison for execution .

Liselotte Herrmann was the first German mother to die under the guillotine in Plötzensee on June 20, 1938, despite a protest campaign in several European countries . The executioner was Friedrich Hehr .

honor

Memorial stone for Liselotte Herrmann in the Stuttgart city garden

Friedrich Wolf wrote a Biographical Poem about Lilo Herrmann , which Paul Dessau set to music in 1954 . In 1987 the DEFA film The First Series - Images of the Berlin Resistance, produced from a book by Stephan Hermlin , was first broadcast on GDR television.

In the GDR , several public institutions were named after her, such as the Pedagogical University in Güstrow , a POS in Eilenburg-Ost , a POS in Eisenach , the POS in Großleinungen , in Eppendorf , the POS in Boxdorf or a kindergarten in Saxony since 1972 Freiberg. In 1961, the GDR Post issued a postage stamp with the image of Liselotte Hermann (Michel number 851) as part of the series Construction and Preservation of the Buchenwald, Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen National Memorials .

When these institutions were legally re-established after 1990, these names were mostly not adopted, for example when the University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration was re-established in Güstrow, which is located in the building of the former teacher training college. The monument in front of the Güstrow facility was preserved. Liselotte Herrmann's name is also recorded on the memorial in the inner courtyard of the Humboldt University in Berlin .

There are still numerous streets named after her in the area of ​​the former GDR, including in Berlin , Neubrandenburg , Erfurt , Gera , Jena , Weimar and Chemnitz. New street names have been added to these in the west, for example in Kiel , Schwäbisch Hall and Vaihingen an der Enz . In Leipzig , a small park in the east of the city is named after her. In Frankfurt (Oder) there is a day care center called “Lilo Herrmann” in the western part of the city.

In 1988, the city youth council erected a memorial stone in front of the university in Stuttgart, where she studied. This was always controversial because, according to an expert report by the university, Lilo Herrmann worked for a movement that wanted to suppress “freedom of research and teaching as well as freedom and human rights in general”. The memorial stone is, however, on a state property right next to the university. The building authorities and the university did not have the memorial stone removed, even the CDU mayors Rommel and Thieringer approved of its installation.

In 1972 a small residential street in the Fasanenhof district was named after her, to which no postal addresses are assigned. On March 14, 2008, a stumbling block was laid in the Hölderlinstrasse in Stuttgart in memory of Liselotte Herrmann. Her son Walter Herrmann and her granddaughter Carola Herrmann were present at the time. The " Left Center Lilo Herrmann " has existed in Stuttgart-Heslach since 2012 .

literature

  • Lothar Letsche: Herrmann, Minna Pauline Liselotte. In: Maria Magdalena Rückert (Ed.): Württembergische biographies including Hohenzollern personalities. Volume I. On behalf of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-17-018500-4 , p. 106 ff.
  • Siegfried Grundmann: Lilo Herrmann and the plan of the Scheuen ammunition facility near Celle. In: Yearbook for research on the history of the labor movement . Issue I / 2010.
  • Karin Algasinger: Lilo H. Investigations into the life story of a resistance fighter and the reception of her opposition to National Socialism from her arrest to today in journalism and scientific research. Master thesis. University of Passau, 1991.
  • Alfred Behr: A Swabian quarrel between historians over a memorial, the end of a GDR legend about Lilo Herrmann. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. No. 29 v. February 4, 1993, p. 4.
  • Willi Bohn : Stuttgart: Secret! A documentary report. Frankfurt / Main 1969.
  • Sigrid Brüggemann: The persecution of political opponents from the left spectrum. In: Ingrid Bauz, Sigrid Brüggemann, Roland Maier (eds.): The Secret State Police in Württemberg and Hohenzollern. Butterfly-Verlag, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-89657-138-0 , pp. 165-195.
  • Ingeborg Höch: No address or: The unloved memory ... In: Stuttgart for women, discoveries in the past and present. Stuttgart 1992, pp. 148-156.
  • Eberhard Jäckel : Lilo H. between legend and reality. In: Stuttgarter Uni-Kurier. 37/1988. (Facsimile In: Lilo H., a resistance fighter from Stuttgart. Pp. 46–52.)
  • Karl H. Jahnke: Artur Göritz, LH In: Decisions. Youth in the Resistance 1933-45. (Library of Resistance). Frankfurt / Main 1970.
    • later: Youth in the Resistance 1933-45. 2nd edited edition. 1985, pp. 33-43.
  • Karl H. Jahnke: From the life and anti-fascist struggle of Lilo H. In: Lilo H., a resistance fighter from Stuttgart. Pp. 8-38.
  • Karl H. Jahnke: Liselotte Herrmann. In: Karl H. Jahnke: Murdered and extinguished. Twelve German anti-fascists. With a foreword by Karl Kielhorm. Ahriman-Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 1995 (Unwanted Books on Fascism, Vol. 8), ISBN 3-89484-553-8 , pp. 33-43.
  • Lothar Letsche: difficulties with an honor; News about Lilo H. and her fellow campaigners. In: Lilo H., a resistance fighter from Stuttgart. 2nd Edition. 1993, pp. 56-65; 67-91.
  • Lothar Letsche: Lilo H .: Single parent in the resistance. In: Lauter Frauen: Detected in Baden-Württemberg, 47 portraits. Stuttgart 2000, pp. 63-65.
  • Association of those persecuted by the Nazi regime - Bund der Antifaschisten, Landesverband Baden-Württemberg e. V. (Ed.): Lilo H., a resistance fighter from Stuttgart. Stuttgart 1989.

Literary processing:

  • Max Burghardt: Letters that were never written. Berlin (GDR) 1966.
  • Ditte Clemens: Hope for Life. A documentary narrative about LH In: Güstrower contributions. 2/1989, pp. 15-87.
  • Ditte Clemens: Silence about Lilo. Die Geschichte der LH Ravensburg 1993, 2nd edition 1995. (Note in the 2nd edition: Due to extremely difficult research work, the hardcover first edition of this documentation was published with a cover photo, which, contrary to all beliefs, did not depict Lilo Herrmann. The author and ask the publisher to excuse the mistake. )
  • Stephan Hermlin: Lilo H. In: The first row. Berlin (GDR) 1951. ( The film Die Erste Reihe (TV of the GDR 1987) was shot based on motifs from this film , in which Lilo Herrmann is portrayed by Johanna Schall)
  • That's how we knew you Lilo. Lilo H., a German woman and mother. With contributions by National Prize Winner Max Burghardt, National Prize Winner Friedrich Wolf u. a., Berlin (GDR) 1954.
  • Friedrich Wolf: Lilo H., a true heroine of our people. 1946.
  • Friedrich Wolf: Lilo H.- The student from Stuttgart, a biographical poem. 1950 (set to music as "Melodrama" by Paul Dessau (1952/53) - separate edition with facsimile of the score: Berlin (GDR) 1963).
  • Paul Dessau: Lilo Herrmann. A biographical poem by Friedrich Wolf. Verlag Neue Musik , Berlin, ISMN M-2032-0665-1

Web links

Commons : Liselotte Herrmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hermann is said to have distributed the resistance pamphlet "The Red Shock Troop", produced in Berlin by predominantly left-wing Social Democrats. See Dennis Egginger-Gonzalez: The Red Shock Troop. An early left-wing socialist resistance group against National Socialism. Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3867322744 , pp. 133f.
  2. ↑ Walter Herrmann died on May 18, 2013 in Berlin.
  3. ↑ VGH, June 12, 1937 - 2 H 16.20.27 / 37. In: OpinioIuris. March 13, 2013, accessed July 2, 2018 .
  4. ↑ 100th birthday of Lilo Herrmann. Federal Archives , accessed on June 20, 2018 (references to the archive holdings of Lilo Herrmann).
  5. ^ Lothar Letsche: In the resistance against the war preparations of the Nazis: The Berlin student Lilo Herrmann. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, July 22, 2011, accessed on June 20, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Ditte Clemens: Silence about Lilo: The story of Liselotte Herrmann. BS-Verlag-Rostock, ISBN 978-3-89954-013-0 , pp. 84f.
  7. ↑ Dieter Lachenmayer: In memory of Lilo Herrmann: Humanity has no party book. VVN-BdA Baden-Württemberg , July 2008, accessed on June 20, 2018 .
  8. ↑ Left center Lilo Herrmann. Retrieved June 20, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Herrmann, Liselotte
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Herrmann, Lilo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION communist resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH June 23, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH June 20, 1938
Place of death Berlin-Plötzensee