Susanne Leonhard

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Susanne Leonhard (born June 14, 1895 in Oschatz ; † April 3, 1984 in Stuttgart ; née Köhler ) was a German writer.

Life

After the early death of her father in 1895, Susanne grew up with her grandfather, a banker. In Oschatz, she also attended the citizens 'school, then for two years a boarding school in Leipzig and from 1912 to 1915 a higher girls' education institution in Chemnitz , where she passed the Abitur.

From 1915 to 1919 she studied mathematics and philosophy in Göttingen and Berlin . Even as a student she was politically left-wing, tried to organize the free students and in 1916 joined the Liebknecht-Jugend ( Spartakusbund ). At the same time she was also active as a journalist and wrote for Die Frau von Minna Cauer , among others . From 1919 to 1920 she was the editorial secretary of the (illegal) Communist Council Correspondence in Berlin.

In 1918 Susanne Köhler married the left-wing expressionist poet and playwright Rudolf Leonhard . The marriage was divorced in 1919. In 1920 she - meanwhile a member of the KPD  - went to Vienna as head of the press department of the Soviet embassy , where in 1921 she married the then Soviet ambassador Mieczysław Broński (1882–1938). This marriage did not last either and was later canceled because it was only concluded under Soviet law. Rudolf Leonhard, Leonhard's first husband, recognized the paternity of his son Wolfgang Leonhard, born in 1921 .

Susanne Leonhard's first major work on underground literature in revolutionary Germany during World War II (1921) also dates from this period . Leonhard returned to Berlin in 1922 and worked there again as a journalist. She wrote mainly for communist organs, later, after her exit from the KPD in 1925 because of ideological differences, in the left-wing bourgeois press. In addition, she was part of a Marxist discussion group initiated by Karl Korsch in Berlin . a. also Bertolt Brecht and Alfred Doblin took part.

After the transfer of power to the National Socialists in 1933, she was refused admission to the professional Nazi organization, which meant that her journalistic activities came to an end for the time being. She earned her living now, among other things, as a dancer after she had attended the Wigman School in the 1920s and obtained a diploma. Leonhard was politically active in the communist resistance movement, primarily as a courier.

In March 1935 Leonhard traveled to Sweden . There she received the news of impending arrest, whereupon she and her son moved to Moscow . She lived here as a language teacher, but was arrested as early as 1936 and spent twelve years in prison in the Vorkuta labor camp and in Siberia . Her son was separated from her and grew up in Moscow. After his return in 1945, he quickly made a career with the Ulbricht group in the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ). In 1948, the later GDR state president Wilhelm Pieck helped him to get his mother from Siberia. Wolfgang Leonhard left East Germany in 1949 and then made a career in the West as an expert on communism.

In August 1948 Susanne Leonhard returned to Germany. At first she lived in East Berlin , only to move to West Germany in the spring of 1949. Here she was interned by the US secret service CIC (Counter Intelligence Corps) and held until April 1950. As a still convinced - anti-Stalinist - socialist, however, she refused to work for US espionage.

After her release from internment, Leonhard settled in Stuttgart. Here, in the early 1950s, she joined the left-wing socialist, short-lived Independent Workers' Party of Germany (UAPD), which was co-founded by her son Wolfgang and which sought socialism based on the Titoist model. In the 1960s she was still head of the local association of the German Freethinkers Association and worked closely with independent left-wing socialists such as Fritz Lamm .

Works

  • Underground literature in revolutionary Germany during the world war . Berlin 1920, DNB  458487104 (reprinted 1968). Digitization via Open Library
  • Stolen life. Fate of a political émigré in the Soviet Union . European Publishing House , Frankfurt am Main 1956, DNB  453000258 (NA: Athenaeum, Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-610-08484-7 ).
  • Drive to doom. As a socialist in Stalin's gulag . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1983, ISBN 3-451-07998-4 (revised version of the work published under the title Stolen Life ).
  • Heiner Jestrabek (Ed.): Susanne Leonhard. Underground literature in revolutionary Germany. Stolen life, free thinking. Documentation on life and work . Liberty Tree, Reutlingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-922589-58-7 .
  • Jutta Schwein: Ricarda's daughter - life between Germany and Israel , Spector Books Leipzig, p. 210. ISBN 978-3-940064-33-2

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Workers' voice . Nuremberg, autumn 2007 (No. 157), p. 31 f.
personal data
SURNAME Leonhard, Susanne
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Köhler, Susanne (maiden name); Sandus, Hannelore (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH June 14, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Oschatz
DATE OF DEATH April 3, 1984
Place of death Stuttgart