Maria Further

Maria Weiterer , b. Tebbe (born February 18, 1899 in Essen (Ruhr), † December 1, 1976 in Berlin ) was a German KPD and SED functionary and general secretary of the Democratic Women's Union of Germany .

Life

Maria Tebbe's father was an accountant, her mother a midwife. From 1906 to 1915 she attended elementary school and then a preparatory institute as well as a commercial school for six months; at the same time she worked in private companies. From 1916 Tebbe was active in the warfare department of the Bochum city administration. In the immediate post-war period she married Mathias Weiterer, from whom she separated again a short time later.

In 1921 Maria Weiterer joined the KPD Essen and worked in the editorial department of Ruhr-Echo and as a typist for Lex Ende . In the following years she was a functionary of the KPD district leaderships in Berlin and for the Ruhr area as well as in the Red Women's and Girls' Union (RFMB). Until 1928 she was Gauleiter of the RFMB in the Ruhr area and then its federal director; After Weiterer fell out with Helene Overlach , who propagated a paramilitary character of the RFMB, she had to give up her position at the RFMB at the end of 1928, while Weiterer himself campaigned for a politically enlightening women's organization. In 1928 she began working in the trade unions department of the Central Committee of the KPD. During this time, Tebbe lived in a community with Siegfried Rädel , was a member of the Reich leadership of the RGO and later in the organizational department of the KPD sub-district Berlin-Charlottenburg and then women's leader in the KPD sub-district Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg , whose political director she was until 1933 .

From February 1933, Maria Weiterer continued her political work in the underground resistance against National Socialism . She was arrested in September 1933 and imprisoned in Moringen concentration camp until March 1934 . In 1934 she managed to escape to Prague by illegally crossing the border. Afterwards she was politically active in the "border work" in the Czech-German border area, for which she was arrested in October 1934 in the ČSR. In November 1934 she was expelled to the USSR; until the end of 1935 she was a stenographer at Profintern in Moscow. In January 1936 she traveled to Switzerland, where she was again active in the "border work" of the KPD and in the KPD section leadership south. In October 1936 she was arrested in Switzerland and expelled to France. There she took over the management of the Social Committee of the KPD and the management of the cadre archive of German-speaking Spain volunteers.

In January 1940 she was arrested in France and interned in the Camp de Rieucros , and from 1941 in the Bompard emigration camp in Marseille. During this time she had contacts with Noel H. Field . After escaping from the internment camp, she lived illegally in France; from December 1941 illegally in Geneva. There she did defense work with Leo Bauer for the KPD emigration leadership. At the end of 1944 she was back in Paris and worked on the Unitarian Service Committee (USC).

In August 1945 Maria Weiterer returned to Germany and in 1945/46 became a union secretary and head of the women's secretariat in the DGB district in Heidelberg and a member of the secretariat of the KPD district leadership in Heidelberg. In June 1946 she moved to Berlin, where she took over the main department for the western zones in the women's secretariat of the SED. From 1947 to 1949, together with Marie Hartung , she took over the leadership of the women's department of the SED party executive as the successor to Elli Schmidt and Käthe Kern . In 1947 Maria Weiterer was co-founder and then the first general secretary of the DFD. After conflicts with the DFD chairwoman Anne-Marie Durand-Wever , she gave up this function and became Federal Secretary of the DFD in 1949/50.

On August 24, 1950, she was expelled from the SED and the VVN because of her collaboration with Noel H. Field and released from all functions. From 1950 to 1952 she financed her living as an accountant or statistician in the Novotex silk weaving mill in Berga (Elster); from 1952 to 1955 as head of department.

In 1954 she was re-admitted to the SED, partially and in 1956 fully rehabilitated within the party; 1956 to 1959 she was secretary of the SED factory party organization in the VEB Novotex ; 1959 to 1963 main advisor for publishers and bookshops at the GDR Ministry of Culture as well as head of the private publishing department and member of the SED management of the VVB publishers. From 1963 to April 1965 she was the main consultant in the management department of the publishing and book trade headquarters. After retiring, she was still politically active in the SED district leadership in Berlin-Köpenick .

Fonts (selection)

• The bourgeois and socialist women's movement in Germany from 1848 to 1933 . Berlin Verlag, Berlin 1948.
• Siegfried Rädel. A life of struggle for the working class . Compiled by Helmut Rädel and Maria Weiterer. Edited by VEB Sächsisches Kunstseidenwerk Siegfried Rädel. Pirna n.d. (1963).
• Elfriede Fölster, Maria Weiterer: Siegfried Rädel. From his life . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1980.

Honors

• 1962 Clara Zetkin Medal;
• 1964 Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze
• 1969 Patriotic Order of Merit in silver

Web links

• Bernd-Rainer Barth :  Another, Maria . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .