Martha Brautzsch

Martha Brautzsch's grave in the southern cemetery in Halle

Martha Brautzsch , born full (* 17th July 1907 in Halle (Saale) ; † 9. March 1946 in Kospa , district Delitzsch ) was a functionary of the Communist Party in the Soviet occupation zone . She was murdered by a marauding Soviet soldier.

Life

The daughter of a stone setter became a member of the KPD in 1924. During the time of National Socialism she was active in the communist resistance. After her release from prison in 1934, she no longer came into conflict with the National Socialists. Her husband Max Brautzsch was imprisoned in prisons and in the Lichtenburg concentration camp for three years . He was drafted into Penal Battalion 999 in February 1943 , became a prisoner of war and returned to Halle in July 1947.

After the war she was particularly involved in the anti-fascist women's movement and fought for equal rights for women. On April 23, 1945 she was appointed to the KPD leadership for Halle and the surrounding area. After the formation of the KPD district leadership Halle-Merseburg in June 1945, she was responsible for women's work as a member of the district leadership. In September 1945 she was elected first chairman of the anti-fascist women's committee of the province of Saxony . Since February 1946 she was a KPD representative on the organizing committee of the unified workers' party for the province of Saxony, which prepared the union of the two parties KPD and SPD to form the SED , which was forced by the Soviet occupation forces .

She and her driver were murdered after a Women's Day event near Kospa. In the official historiography of the GDR , “fascist gangs” were given as the originator of this bloody act. Recent research has shown that Martha Brautzsch and her driver fell victim to a marauding Soviet soldier. Her grave is in the south cemetery of Halle.

Honors

In honor of Brautzsch, streets in Halle (Saale) , Genthin , Hettstedt , Löderburg , Doberschütz as well as in Kahlwinkel , a maternity and infant home in Kropstädt and a children's home in Battaune were named after her. There is also a Martha-Brautzsch-Weg in Weißenfels .

Web links

• Sven Felix Kellerhoff : How SED functionaries stylized themselves as anti-fascists . Welt Online from January 11, 2007

literature

• Frank Hirschinger : Forgery and instrumentalization of anti-fascist biographies: The example of Halle / Saale 1945–2005 , V&R unipress GmbH, Göttingen, 2007, ISBN 3-89971-354-0 .
• Frank Hirschinger: Brautzsch, Martha, b. Whole. In: Eva Labouvie (Ed.): Women in Saxony-Anhalt, Vol. 2: A biographical-bibliographical lexicon from the 19th century to 1945. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2019, ISBN 978-3-412-51145-6 , p. 107-109.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hirschinger 2007, p. 53