Martha Frahm

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Martha Luise Wilhelmine Frahm (born March 16, 1894 as Martha Ewert in Kalkhorst ; † August 3, 1969 in Lübeck ; married Martha Kuhlmann) was the mother of the future German Chancellor Willy Brandt , who was born in Lübeck in 1913 as Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm .

Life

Early life, birth of the first son

In the residential building at Meierstrasse 16, Martha Frahm gave birth to her son Herbert with the help of a midwife, who became Federal Chancellor under the name Willy Brandt (photo 2013).
In 2013, a memorial plaque was attached to the building.

She was born in 1894 as the illegitimate child of nineteen-year-old Wilhelmine Ewert. Martha's half-brother Ernst was born in 1896, whose father was the servant Ludwig Frahm. Wilhelmine Ewert and Ludwig Frahm married on November 2, 1897 in Damshagen . In 1901 Martha Ewert received Ludwig Frahm's name by naming it, as Pastor Heinrich Krüger recorded in the Kalkhorster church register: “According to the Grand Duke's certificate. At the Ministry of Justice on April 29, 1900, the worker Ludwig Frahm issued the declaration that he would give his name Frahm to Martha Luise Wilhelmine Ewert, who was born by his wife Wilhelmine Ewert on March 16, 1894 in addition to the marriage in Kalkhorst ”.

Martha Frahm attended elementary school in Klütz, which she graduated after seven years. In 1907 the family moved to Lübeck and finally lived there in the St. Lorenz district on Meierstrasse. Martha Frahm's mother died in 1913. The daughter stayed with her stepfather Ludwig Frahm, who now worked as a coachman and later worked as a truck driver for the Drägerwerke , and her half-brother. She initially worked as a cleaning lady and later worked as a saleswoman in the consumer association, where she was employed in 1913. In her free time, she attended the Lübeck Theater with a subscription to the Volksbühne visitor ring, was a member of the workers' education association and took on roles in performances by the Proletarian Speaking Choir. She enjoyed traveling and often spent time at the Baltic Sea in Travemünde in the summer .

Martha Frahm became pregnant in 1913 and gave birth to her son Herbert on December 18, 1913 with the help of the midwife Luise Lotzow in the two-room apartment at Meierstrasse 16, where she lived with her stepfather. Martha Frahm did not give her father's name when the birth was reported to the registry office. On February 26, 1914, she had her son Herbert baptized by Alfred Stülcken in Pastorate II of the Lübeck suburban church of St. Lorenz . Children born out of wedlock were not allowed to be baptized in the parish church.

She went back to work soon after her son was born. Meanwhile, neighbors and Martha Frahm's stepfather took care of the child. When he was a soldier during the First World War , Martha Frahm sent him letters in the field with photos of herself and her son. For this and for special events she dressed her son in sailor suit with lingerie aft , as members of the nobility and bourgeoisie did at this time . Herbert Frahm called his mother's stepfather "Papa", as "father" he was mentioned in Herbert's school reports and his Abitur certificate. It wasn't until 1934 that he found out from his mother's brother, his uncle Ernst, that Ludwig Frahm was not his biological grandfather. In his memoirs , Willy Brandt placed the chapter on his childhood and youth in Lübeck under the heading “Unhoused youth” and wrote of “family chaos”.

Looking back in 1964 in a television interview with Günter Gaus , he emphasized the special circumstances of his growing up: “I don't want to dramatize the difficult childhood or not-so-easy childhood [...] I don't want to make it more difficult than it was. I was well looked after, it wasn't. But [...] you differed from others. ” On the basis of this and similar statements, Brandt biographer Carola Stern was of the opinion that Brandt's youthful rebellion was not, as is usual, against the family, but together with her“ against a bourgeois world in which being born out of wedlock is considered a flaw ”. “The longing for justice and love, the belief in socialism”, said Stern, has been reinforced “by the double resignation”.

Herbert Frahm's biological father was not an issue in the family: “Neither mother nor grandfather, with whom I grew up, spoke about my father; it was self-evident that I didn't ask. And since he obviously didn't want to know anything about me, I didn't think it appropriate to follow my father's lead, ”Willy Brandt wrote in his memoirs . In 1927 Herbert Frahm claims to have picked up the name John Möller. Born in Hamburg, John Heinrich Möller (1887–1958) was a secondary school teacher, but was dismissed from school service in 1933 because of his proximity to social democracy and later worked as an accountant. Only when the son was grown up did Martha Frahm confirm the father's identity in a letter dated February 7, 1947. Willy Brandt had written to his mother when he was trying to get his citizenship back.

Her son's origins were linked with Julius Leber , Hermann Abendroth and a Mecklenburg Count von Plessen (zu Ivenack ), a German national judge, and a Bulgarian communist named Pogoreloff after Brandt had made a career as a politician. Erich Ollenhauer confronted Brandt with these speculations in 1960 after he had been nominated as candidate for chancellor. According to this, Martha Frahm would have had a relationship with Leber even before he came to Lübeck, or with Abendroth, who was first conductor at the theater in Lübeck, but had left the city in 1911. Or to Graf Plessen, to Otto Carstensen, a district judge from Bad Schwartau , who had a German national position, or to the Bulgarian communist Wladimir Pogoreloff, who was assumed to have a personal identity with Brandt in a German national biography published abroad. Willy Brandt's 1942 book War in Norway: April 9 - June 9, 1940 (original Swedish title Kriget i Norge ) was listed under the author's name Brandt, W. (ladimir, di Wladimir Pogoreloff) .

Willy Brandt and Konrad Adenauer on the occasion of the construction of the Berlin Wall (1961)

In retrospect, Brandt asked himself: “Why did I make it so difficult for myself for so long? And wasn't satisfied with the fact that there were by no means more Lübeck workers' children who didn't know their name and who had their mother's name? ”He was unable to explain his origins as an illegitimate child, and yet the gossip planted a thorn in him. On the evening of August 14, 1961, the day after the construction of the Berlin Wall began , Konrad Adenauer referred to Brandt in a campaign speech in Regensburg as "alias Frahm"; he repeated this formulation two days later in the federal capital Bonn. With “alias Frahm”, the then Federal Chancellor alluded to Brandt's illegitimate birth, which at that time was still perceived as a flaw , and to his alias in exile in Norway and Sweden.

Marriage, birth of the second son, wartime

In 1927 Martha Frahm married the 47-year-old bricklayer foreman Emil Kuhlmann and moved with him to Hansestraße 136. With Emil Kuhlmann she had their son Günther, who was born in February 1928. Her first son Herbert, who in the meantime attended the prestigious Johanneum high school in Lübeck , stayed with her stepfather Ludwig Frahm, who had married Dora Sahlmann for the second time in 1919. Her stepfather ran for citizenship in Lübeck on the SPD list in 1926 and 1929. Martha and Emil Kuhlmann took a girl, Waltraud, into the family and raised her until she was 21 years old.

When Martha Kuhlmann's first son Herbert went into exile in Norway in 1933, “she did not hide her worries, but expressed understanding”. After Brandt went underground, the Gestapo tore the whole house apart. Martha and Emil were locked up for weeks. Martha lost her stepfather Ludwig Frahm on June 15, 1935 by his suicide . The social democrat was desperate about the political developments in the time of National Socialism . Shortly afterwards she traveled to Copenhagen and met her son Herbert there, who now called himself Willy Brandt. Her husband Emil met Willy Brandt in 1937 during a Kraft-durch-Freude trip in Oslo, which he was allowed to undertake, although he had been taken into protective custody for several weeks in 1934 .

During the Second World War Martha Kuhlmann and her husband Emil were taken into custody in 1942 after the air raid on March 29th . They were charged with treason. The allegation was based on the denunciation that they had given light signals to the pilots of the Royal Air Force. They were released after several weeks. During this time she only received mail from her exiled son Herbert via cover addresses.

Post war, later life

After the end of the Second World War Martha Kuhlmann hoped to see her son Willy again soon, but he put her off in writing on August 26, 1945: “There are still some tasks for me that I cannot leave behind. But one day I'll appear at your place. ”Willy Brandt returned to Germany from Norway on November 8, 1945 to report on the Nuremberg Trials as a correspondent for Scandinavian newspapers . From Oslo he arrived in Bremen by plane. His request to be allowed to make a detour to Lübeck, Brandt, who was still wearing a Norwegian uniform, was refused by a US lieutenant on the grounds that his marching orders only apply to the direct route to Nuremberg.

A few days later, the mayor of Bremen, Wilhelm Kaisen , made it possible for him to travel to Lübeck , who provided him with his car, driver and gasoline. When Willy Brandt unexpectedly stood in front of the door in uniform, the mother did not recognize her son straight away, nor did his half-brother Günther. “The heavy-blooded nature of the Mecklenburgers made it easier to see each other again, which could not have endured many words. Only when the excitement subsided and the joy of having found each other healthy again did we exchange ideas - about our experiences, about the crimes of the Nazis and what was known about them. "Martha Kuhlmann tried to convey to her son that" she, like other anti-Nazis, did not want to be declared complicit in crimes that she had not committed ”, for which the returned son showed understanding. From Nuremberg, where Brandt was traveling on, Martha Kuhlmann received greetings on a postcard from her son.

In 1947 Martha and Emil Kuhlmann received a visit from Willy Brandt in Lübeck, who introduced them to his Norwegian friend and future wife Rut Bergaust , née Hansen. After Willy Brandt had started a family with his wife Rut, his wife made contact with the mother-in-law and her husband, who now lived in a semi-detached house in the rural Vorrade of the Lübeck district of St. Jürgen . It was Rut Brandt's concern to convey family tradition to the children. Son Peter Brandt in particular loved visiting grandmother Martha and step-grandfather Emil, whom he admired for his manual skills.

Rut Brandt about the living conditions of her in-laws: “The house had a kitchen and a living room downstairs and two rooms upstairs. There was no bathroom, and the toilet was in the barn, where people sat in company with pigs and chickens - much to the delight of the children in the years that followed. ”The family also stayed overnight in Vorrade. Looking back on his visits to Lübeck “at least twice a year”, Peter Brandt “first and foremost remembered the grandparents with their little house and the huge garden. Up until he was 76, my grandfather worked on construction every now and then - that was a completely different life than that of my family in Berlin. I really enjoyed being here ”. Martha Kuhlmann liked to tell anecdotes from the childhood and youth of her politician son, who was reluctant to pass on personal experiences and, for example, only cautiously disclosed his experiences in exile to the sons on request. Martha Kuhlmann reported to her grandsons with amusement that Willy Brandt, whom she always called by his maiden name Herbert, had won a 5000 meter run at a workers' sports festival - because he was the only participant.

Politics was a popular topic during the visits. “Emil and Martha were good, loyal SPD comrades, but they were not always satisfied with the party. There were things that annoyed them, circumstances that they complained about, and there were one or two comrades who had said this and that. Willy was bored with that, I found it fun to listen to them in their dialect the more I learned to understand them. Willy's mother in particular could get angry with the party. (...) Willy had his mother's face, the same distinctive features. "

During his time as federal politician and governing mayor in Berlin, Willy Brandt always went to his mother city, as he called Lübeck, in order to speak at rallies there on the day before election Sunday. He combined this opportunity with visits to his mother and stepfather. Rut Brandt thought of her “later so often when scandalous and infamous attacks were directed against her son in the election campaigns because he was born out of wedlock. But they were still able to experience many of his successes ”.

Martha Kuhlmann did not live to see her son's election as Federal Chancellor after the federal election on September 28, 1969. She died on August 3, 1969 in Lübeck. After her death, Willy Brandt continued his practice of ending election campaigns in Lübeck. The attacks against her son because of his illegitimate birth continued into the 1970s, which is why Heinrich Böll tried to protect Willy Brandt during the 1972 election campaign "against the 'primordial flaws' of illegitimate birth (...) among bourgeois Catholic voters".

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Wein: Willy Brandt - becoming a statesman . Aufbau-Taschenbuch-Verl., Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-7466-1992-0 , p. 17.
  2. ↑ Peter Merseburger: Willy Brandt, 1913-1992. Visionär und Realist , Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-423-34097-5 , p. 16.
  3. ↑ Willy Brandt in an interview with Günter Gaus on September 25, 1964.
  4. ↑ Günter Gaus in conversation with Willy Brandt (1964) , youtube
  5. ↑ Carola Stern: Willy Brandt in self-testimonials and image documents , Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1975, ISBN 3-499-50232-1 , p. 10.
  6. ↑ Willy Brandt: Recollections Ullstein-Taschenbuch, Berlin 1992, extended edition, ISBN 3-548-22977-8 , p. 86.
  7. ↑ Martha wrote in the letter: “Dear Herbert, your father's name is John Möller, he always lived in Hamburg, his job was an accountant in production, as far as I know from F. Jaeckstat, he was head of a coal department until then, whether He's still alive, I don't know, maybe you can inquire about production, he still has to work, he's around 60 years old. ”According to Brigitte Seebacher : A life for Germany in: Spiegel 20/2004 of May 10, 2004, P. 69.
  8. ↑ Willy Brandt: Recollections Ullstein-Taschenbuch, Berlin 1992, extended edition, ISBN 3-548-22977-8 , p. 86.
  9. ↑ Brandt - Father and Son , in: Der Spiegel 52/1986.
  10. ↑ Peter Merseburger: Willy Brandt, 1913-1992. Visionary and Realist , Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-423-34097-5 , p. 21.
  11. ↑ Willy Brandt: Memories Ullstein-Taschenbuch, Berlin 1992, extended edition, ISBN 3-548-22977-8 , pp. 85–86.
  12. ↑ Peter Merseburger: Willy Brandt, 1913-1992. Visionär und Realist , Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-423-34097-5 , p. 408.
  13. ↑ Martin Wein: Willy Brandt - becoming a statesman . Aufbau-Taschenbuch-Verl., Berlin 2003, p. 91.
  14. ↑ According to information from Günther Kuhlmann, according to Spiegel 50/1986 of December 8, 1986, pp. 116b – 118a.
  15. ↑ Spiegel 35/1984 of August 27, 1984, pp. 143-148a.
  16. ↑ Martin Wein: Willy Brandt - becoming a statesman . Aufbau-Taschenbuch-Verl., Berlin 2003, p. 290.
  17. ↑ Peter Merseburger: Willy Brandt, 1913-1992. Visionary and Realist , Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-423-34097-5 , p. 225.
  18. ^ Willy Brandt: Memories Ullstein-Taschenbuch, Berlin 1992, extended edition, p. 143.
  19. ↑ Peter Merseburger: Willy Brandt, 1913-1992. Visionär und Realist , Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-423-34097-5 , p. 227.
  20. ^ Rut Brandt: Freundesland. Memories . Verlag Hoffmann & Campe, Hamburg 1992. ISBN 3-455-08443-5 . P. 91.
  21. ↑ Michael Berger: "My father was a real Lübeck man, you could hear that from his language" In: Lübecker Nachrichten of April 22, 2010, p. 19.
  22. ^ Rut Brandt: Freundesland. Memories . Verlag Hoffmann & Campe, Hamburg 1992. ISBN 3-455-08443-5 . Pp. 91-92.
  23. ^ Rut Brandt: Freundesland. Memories . Verlag Hoffmann & Campe, Hamburg 1992. ISBN 3-455-08443-5 , p. 92.
  24. ↑ Peter Merseburger: Willy Brandt, 1913-1992. Visionary and Realist , Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-423-34097-5 , p. 14.
personal data
SURNAME Frahm, Martha
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ewert, Martha; Kuhlmann, Martha
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German saleswoman
DATE OF BIRTH March 16, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Kalkhorst
DATE OF DEATH 3rd August 1969
Place of death Lübeck