Maria Roeder

Maria Röder , née Assmann, later Müller (born November 17, 1903 in Sulzbach / Saar , † September 26, 1985 in Dudweiler ) was a German communist , women's rights activist and justice victim of National Socialism .

Life

Maria Assmann grew up in the poor conditions of a social democratic working class family. Shortly after the First World War , both parents died and Assmann managed to survive as an unskilled maid. In 1922 she married a social democratic miner and took the name Müller. Attending a women's rally in the same year, organized by Angela Braun-Stratmann , changed her life. She first joined the SPD and began to be interested in social affairs and local politics .

In 1929 she broke with the SPD in view of the blood maize and came to the KPD through the Association of Working Women . In the meantime, her marriage, which had resulted in two children, was divorced and she moved into an apartment with the communist Ida Laub . In 1933 she finally converted to the KPD and became the women's leader of St. Johann in the voting campaign for the Saar area . She helped Emma Stenzer, whose husband Franz Stenzer was murdered by the National Socialists in the Dachau concentration camp on August 22, 1933 , in the escape by taking the woman and her children via Switzerland to the Saar region. In 1934 she took part in the International Women's Congress in Paris.

After the Saar area was annexed to the German Reich , she worked as a courier for illegal KPD offices in Lorraine and secretly brought leaflets and newspapers to the Saarland. During this time she, along with Otto Johänntgen and Walter Brückner, was one of the most influential functionaries of the KPD who operated within the German Reich.

On August 3, 1935, Müller and her roommate Ida Laub were arrested and interrogated in Saarbrücken's Lerchesflur prison . On May 29, 1936 she was transferred to the Preungesheim prison for women . In a mass trial of 28 anti-fascists before the 2nd Division of the People's Court she was sentenced to five years ' imprisonment convicted, they until August 20, 1940 predominantly in prison and penitentiary Dreibergen-Bützow was serving. It was under police supervision until 1942, but thereafter remained unmolested. In 1944 she married the miner Nikolaus Röder.

After the Second World War, Maria Röder was involved in the association of those persecuted by the Nazi regime - the Association of Antifascists . Among other things, she appeared as a contemporary witness on television. She also took part in tours of the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp .

literature

• Klaus-Michael Mallmann ; Gerhard Paul : The fragmented no. Saarlanders against Hitler . Ed .: Hans-Walter Herrmann (=  resistance and refusal in Saarland 1935–1945 . Volume 1 ). Dietz , Bonn 1989, ISBN 3-8012-5010-5 , p. 191-1196 .
• Horst Bernard: Else Merkel . In: Luitwin Blies / Horst Bernard (ed.): Saarland women against the Nazis. Persecuted - Evicted - Expropriated. Blattlaus-Verlag, Saarbrücken 2004, ISBN 3-930771-31-4 , p. 93-99 .

Web links

• Maria Röder ( memento from March 17, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) on the VVN-BdA-Saar website