Liselotte Herrmann
Encyclopedia
Liselotte Herrmann was a German
Communist resistance fighter during the Third Reich.
’s daughter, had a middle-class liberal upbringing. After completing her Abitur
, she went to work in a chemical factory
to support her studies in chemistry
, starting in 1929, and later also in biology
as of 1931. She took these programmes at the Technische Hochschule Stuttgart (now the University of Stuttgart
) and the University of Berlin
. She joined the Kommunistischer Jugendverband Deutschlands (“Communist Youth Federation of Germany”) in 1928 or 1930, and also became a member of the Roter Studentenbund (“Red Students’ League”). From 1931, she was a member of the Communist Party of Germany
(KPD).
. On 20 December 1933, her husband was slain in Gestapo
custody.
She took a job as a nanny
and socialized with the armed resistance within the KPD. In 1934, Liselotte's son Walter was born. From September of the same year, she lived once again in Stuttgart
, where she worked as a shorthand
typist at her father's engineering office.
She reestablished contacts with the now banned KPD. From late 1934, she worked as a technical aid with Stefan Lovasz, the Württemberg
KPD leader. She obtained from Arthur Göritz information about secret weapons projects — munitions production at the Dornier factory in Friedrichshafen
and the building of another, underground munitions factory near Celle
— which she relayed to the KPD's office that had been set up in Switzerland
.
and conspiracy
to commit high treason
". Lina Haag
was held in the same Remand Prison at that time, and remembers the night she was sentenced in her book 'A Handful of Dust' or 'How Long the Night'.
After a year in the Berlin Women's Prison, she was transferred to Plötzensee
Prison
, also in Berlin, for execution. Despite international protests, Liselotte Hermann was beheaded by guillotine on 20 June 1938. Her political friends Stefan Lovasz, Josef Steidle and Arthur Göritz were also put to death the same day.
s, street
s, and institutions were named after her, but after German reunification
in 1990, many were given new names in the rush to erase all references to Communism.
Indeed, even in Stuttgart, where Liselotte Herrmann studied, she has been a controversial figure. In 1988, unknown persons placed a simple memorial stone to her on the University of Stuttgart campus, which caused a bit of a stir. "Lilo-Herrmann-Weg" was the city's tribute to her, but it is little more than a 100 m-long blind alley affording access to public and private parking. No-one lives there. In the 1970s, students at the university tried to get a new residence named after her, but the university administration balked at the idea.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
Communist resistance fighter during the Third Reich.
Early years
Liselotte Herrmann, an engineerEngineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
’s daughter, had a middle-class liberal upbringing. After completing her Abitur
Abitur
Abitur is a designation used in Germany, Finland and Estonia for final exams that pupils take at the end of their secondary education, usually after 12 or 13 years of schooling, see also for Germany Abitur after twelve years.The Zeugnis der Allgemeinen Hochschulreife, often referred to as...
, she went to work in a chemical factory
Factory
A factory or manufacturing plant is an industrial building where laborers manufacture goods or supervise machines processing one product into another. Most modern factories have large warehouses or warehouse-like facilities that contain heavy equipment used for assembly line production...
to support her studies in chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
, starting in 1929, and later also in biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
as of 1931. She took these programmes at the Technische Hochschule Stuttgart (now the University of Stuttgart
University of Stuttgart
The University of Stuttgart is a university located in Stuttgart, Germany. It was founded in 1829 and is organized in 10 faculties....
) and the University of Berlin
Humboldt University of Berlin
The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...
. She joined the Kommunistischer Jugendverband Deutschlands (“Communist Youth Federation of Germany”) in 1928 or 1930, and also became a member of the Roter Studentenbund (“Red Students’ League”). From 1931, she was a member of the Communist Party of Germany
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
(KPD).
Opposition activities
Early in 1933, she signed a “Call for the Defence of Democratic Rights and Freedoms” at the university in Berlin, and was therefore, together with 111 other students, reprimanded and debarred by the university on 11 July 1933. From that time, she worked illegally against Germany's fascist dictatorshipDictatorship
A dictatorship is defined as an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator. It has three possible meanings:...
. On 20 December 1933, her husband was slain in Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
custody.
She took a job as a nanny
Nanny
A nanny, childminder or child care provider, is an individual who provides care for one or more children in a family as a service...
and socialized with the armed resistance within the KPD. In 1934, Liselotte's son Walter was born. From September of the same year, she lived once again in Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
, where she worked as a shorthand
Shorthand
Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed or brevity of writing as compared to a normal method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek stenos and graphē or graphie...
typist at her father's engineering office.
She reestablished contacts with the now banned KPD. From late 1934, she worked as a technical aid with Stefan Lovasz, the Württemberg
Württemberg
Württemberg , formerly known as Wirtemberg or Wurtemberg, is an area and a former state in southwestern Germany, including parts of the regions Swabia and Franconia....
KPD leader. She obtained from Arthur Göritz information about secret weapons projects — munitions production at the Dornier factory in Friedrichshafen
Friedrichshafen
This article is about a German town. For the Danish town, see Frederikshavn, and for the Finnish town, see Fredrikshamn .Friedrichshafen is a university city on the northern side of Lake Constance in Southern Germany, near the borders with Switzerland and Austria.It is the district capital of the...
and the building of another, underground munitions factory near Celle
Celle
Celle is a town and capital of the district of Celle, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town is situated on the banks of the River Aller, a tributary of the Weser and has a population of about 71,000...
— which she relayed to the KPD's office that had been set up in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
.
Arrest, trial, death
On 7 December 1935, Liselotte Hermann was seized. For 19 harrowing months she was held in remand custody, whilst her young son had to be cared for by his grandparents. Charged before the Volksgerichtshof, Herrmann was sentenced to death by the Second Senate of the Volksgerichtshof in Stuttgart on 12 June 1937 for "treasonTreason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
and conspiracy
Conspiracy (crime)
In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
to commit high treason
High treason
High treason is criminal disloyalty to one's government. Participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state are perhaps...
". Lina Haag
Lina Haag
Lina Haag née Jäger is a former member of the Youth movement of the Communist Party of Germany in the small Württemberg town of Schwäbisch Gmünd in the 1920s. In 1927, she married fellow Communist Alfred Haag. Alfred was a member of the regional Parliament for the KPD until Hitler's rise to...
was held in the same Remand Prison at that time, and remembers the night she was sentenced in her book 'A Handful of Dust' or 'How Long the Night'.
After a year in the Berlin Women's Prison, she was transferred to Plötzensee
Plötzensee
Plötzensee is a small glacial lake in Berlin. It is situated near the Rehberge public park in the former borough of Wedding, now a part of Mitte. The name stems from Plötze, one name for the roach in German, as the lake formerly teemed with it....
Prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
, also in Berlin, for execution. Despite international protests, Liselotte Hermann was beheaded by guillotine on 20 June 1938. Her political friends Stefan Lovasz, Josef Steidle and Arthur Göritz were also put to death the same day.
Controversy
In East Germany, many schoolSchool
A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
s, street
Street
A street is a paved public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable...
s, and institutions were named after her, but after German reunification
German reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
in 1990, many were given new names in the rush to erase all references to Communism.
Indeed, even in Stuttgart, where Liselotte Herrmann studied, she has been a controversial figure. In 1988, unknown persons placed a simple memorial stone to her on the University of Stuttgart campus, which caused a bit of a stir. "Lilo-Herrmann-Weg" was the city's tribute to her, but it is little more than a 100 m-long blind alley affording access to public and private parking. No-one lives there. In the 1970s, students at the university tried to get a new residence named after her, but the university administration balked at the idea.
Literature
- Alfred Behr: Ein schwäbischer Streit der Historiker um ein Denkmal. Ende einer DDR-Legende über Lilo Hermann, in: FAZ, Nr. 29 vom 4. Februar 1993, S. 4
- Max Burghardt: Briefe, die nie geschrieben wurden. Lilo Hermann zum Gedächtnis, Verl. Neues Leben, Berlin, 1966
- Ditte Clemens: Schweigen über Lilo. Die Geschichte der Liselotte Hermann, BS-Verl., Rostock 2002, ISBN 978-3-89954-013-0
- Deutsche Widerstandskämpfer 1933-1945. Biographien und Briefe, Dietz, Berlin, 1970 (vol. 1-2)
- Stephan Hermlin: Die erste Reihe, Verl. Neues Leben, Berlin, 1959
- Karl-Heinz Jahnke (Hrsg.): Niemals vergessen! Aus dem antifaschistischen Widerstandskampf der Studenten Europas, Verl. Neues Leben, Berlin 1959
- Lothar Letsche (Hrsg.): Lilo Herrmann. Eine Stuttgarter Widerstandskämpferin, Vereinigung der Verfolgten des Naziregimes, Stuttgart 1993
External links
- Tribute to Lilo Herrmann from the Marxist Library (in German)
- University of Stuttgart alumnal record (in German — scroll down)
- Article about controversy over Lilo Herrmann memorials in Stuttgart (in German)
- A brief biography (in German)