Oda Schottmüller

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Oda Schottmüller (born February 9, 1905 in Posen ; † August 5, 1943 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was a dancer and sculptor . Oda Schottmüller was an active member of the “ Red Orchestra ” and was beheaded together with Hilde Coppi , Adam Kuckhoff and Maria Terwiel in Plötzensee prison .

Life

Stumbling block at the house, Reichsstrasse 106, in Berlin-Westend
Memorial stone on the old St. Matthew Cemetery , in Berlin-Schöneberg

Oda Schottmüller was the daughter of the archivist Kurt Schottmüller (1871–1918) and granddaughter of the historian Konrad Schottmüller (1841–1893). From 1922 to 1924 she attended the Odenwald School in Heppenheim . During this time she was friends with Klaus Mann , who was also a student there. From 1924 to 1927 she completed an arts and crafts training in Pforzheim and Frankfurt am Main . In 1928, inspired by Vera Skoronel , she began training as a dancer in her Berlin school. At the same time, from 1929 on, she belonged to Milly Steger's sculpting class of the Association of Berlin Women Artists . Her work, Mädchenakt mit Tuch from this period, is now in the Nationalgalerie Berlin . In 1931 she passed the exams in gymnastics and physical education. From the next year she performed herself as a dancer, u. a. in the Volksbühne Berlin . In the early 1930s she was a student of Johannes Itten in the field of sculpture. Oda Schottmüller connected both areas by wearing self-made masks for her dances.

During the Nazi era , around 1935, she met the sculptor Kurt Schumacher , in whose studio discussions on art theory and political training courses took place. After 1936 the librarian Lotte Schleif (1903–1965), the sculptor Ilse Schaeffer and the dancer Hanna Berger joined this resistance group . There are some more detailed reports on the activities of this group in the memoirs of Elfriede Paul , who kept in touch through her partner Walter Küchenmeister and was also active in this group.

Until her arrest, Oda Schottmüller performed regularly as a dancer at home and abroad. She exhibited her sculptural work at public exhibitions. She used these trips for courier services between the groups of the “Rote Kapelle”. Very little is known about the extent of her resistance activities, as the documents about her interrogations have been lost and most of her colleagues were also murdered. Some receipts from the time of their imprisonment, which u. a. report on the interrogations, have been preserved and are published. In her apartment, pamphlets from the “Red Orchestra” are said to have been copied and copied.

She was arrested on September 16, 1942. In January 1943 she was sentenced to death for aiding and abetting the preparation of a highly treasonable enterprise and favoring the enemy . After the rejection of a clemency the judgment on 5 August 1943 enforced .

Her "main prosecutor" invoked his "duty of service" after the war, was acquitted and worked as a lawyer.

Honor

In November 2014, Schottmüllerstraße in Hamburg-Eppendorf was renamed after her. Originally, the street was named in 1936 after the bacteriologist Hugo Schottmüller ( NSDAP member) and was only renamed from Pallandt to Oda Schottmüller after Parsifal had entered it.

On September 23, 2016, a stumbling block for Oda Schottmüller was laid in front of the house at Reichsstrasse 106 in Berlin-Charlottenburg .

On August 25, 2019 , a memorial stone was unveiled in the old St. Matthew Cemetery in Berlin-Schöneberg .

Common statements about life

In the older literature - mostly mentioned en passant - there are various statements about the life of Oda Schottmüller and her participation in the resistance, which according to the current state of knowledge of the research literature are not based on proven facts, but should nevertheless be presented here for the purpose of comprehensive information:

  • In her youth, Greta Kuckhoff sublet Oda Schottmüller's aunt Hiltrud Vielhaber for a while. In her memoir she mentions that she met Oda Schottmüller in person there - probably in 1925. (Kuckhoff 1972, p. 39). However, this representation is refuted by a much earlier written statement by Greta Kuckhoff of June 2, 1947, where she expresses herself in much more detail than in the memoirs on Oda Schottmüller and explains that she first met her personally in 1942 in the police prison on Alexanderplatz . (Andresen 2005, p. 21).
  • As a Gestapo final report (printed in Andresen 2005, p. 274) shows, the National Socialists assumed that Hans Coppi a. also from Oda Schottmüller's studio apartment at Reichsstrasse 106 in Berlin's Westend (unsuccessful) radio attempts to Moscow. Coppi was severely tortured during interrogation. No such radio attempts from her studio are mentioned in the grounds for the death sentence against Hans Coppi (ibid.). What is certain is that no radio was found during the search of Oda Schottmüller's studio on September 16, 1942 (ibid.). There is no evidence whatsoever to support the Gestapo's claims for such failed radio attempts from Oda Schottmüller's studio. Nevertheless, this Gestapo assertion is occasionally rumored and presented as a fact, especially in older literature on the Rote Kapelle, in different, contradicting variants and always without evidence: Gilles Perrault, for example, adds the phrase “the one radio device” to a list of the names of the executed Oda Schottmüller's names without evidence had hidden with himself ".

literature

  • Geertje Andresen: Oda Schottmüller 1905–1943. The dancer, sculptor and anti-Nazi opponent. Lukas-Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-936872-58-9 .
  • Geertje Andresen: Oda Schottmüller. The judicial murder of a dancer under National Socialism. In: Ballett intern , H. 72, Volume 29, No. 1, February 2006, pp. 2–5 ( digitized version ).
  • Geertje Andresen:  Schottmüller, Oda. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-11204-3 , p. 503 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Geertje Andresen: Who was Oda Schottmüller? Two versions of her biography and their reception in the old Federal Republic and in the GDR. (= Studies and documents on everyday life, persecution and resistance under National Socialism, Volume 3). Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2012 ISBN 978-3-86732-125-9 (on Google books )
  • Wolfgang Benz , Walter H. Pehle (Hrsg.): Lexicon of the German resistance. Fischer, Frankfurt 1994, ISBN 3-10-005702-3 , p. 392
  • Regina Griebel, Marlies Coburger, Heinrich Scheel : "Recorded?" The Gestapo album for the Red Orchestra. Audioscop, Halle (Saale) 1992
  • Greta Kuckhoff: From the Rosary to the Red Chapel. A life story. New Life Publishing House, Berlin 1972
  • Elfriede Paul : A consulting room of the Red Chapel. Military publishing house of the German Democratic Republic, Berlin 1981
  • Leopold Trepper : The truth. Autobiography of the “Grand Chef” of the Red Chapel. Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-423-01387-7 , pp. 152–377.

Web links

Commons : Oda Schottmüller  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Paul: A consulting room in the Red Chapel . 1986, pp. 39f., 66, 86, 118, 162.
  2. ^ Brigitte Oleschinski : Plötzensee Memorial . German Resistance Memorial Center, Berlin 1995 (2nd edition), ISBN 3-926082-05-4 ; PDF ; P. 27 (without indication of source)
  3. ^ Rolf Michaelis: Free dance? March in lockstep! In: Die Zeit, 38/1993 from September 17, 1993 (see web links)
  4. ^ Hamburg: Schottmüller - corrected. ( Memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) hamburger-wochenblatt.de, December 2, 2014, accessed on August 4, 2015.
  5. ↑ Gilles Perrault : In the footsteps of the Red Chapel ; Europaverlag: Vienna / Munich 1994, ISBN 3-203-51232-7 , p. 340 (EA fr. 1967 / dt. 1969)
personal data
SURNAME Schottmüller, Oda
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German dancer and sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH February 9, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Poses
DATE OF DEATH August 5, 1943
Place of death Berlin-Plötzensee