Olga Körner
Olga Körner | |
---|---|
Born | Olga Schubert 3 June 1887 |
Died | 22 December 1969 |
Occupation(s) | political & resistance activist politician |
Political party | SPD USPD KPD SED |
Spouse | Theodor Körner |
Children | y |
Olga Körner (born Olga Schubert: 3 June 1887 – 22 December 1969) was a
Life
Early years
Olga Schubert was born into a working-class family in Rübenau (now part of Marienberg), a village on the German frontier with Bohemia, to the south of Dresden. From 1901 until 1903 she worked in domestic service. Between 1903 and 1909 she worked in the flowers and textiles sectors.[5] In 1907 she relocated to what is today the Dresden quarter of Dobritz. She married Theodor Körner the next year. By 1920 she had also trained for work as a seamstress and cook.[4]
Politics
On 8 March 1911 she joined the
She was elected a communist party member of the Saxony Regional parliament ("Landtag") on 1930.[5] That same year, in the national election of September 1930, she was elected to the national parliament ("Reichstag") for the Dresden-Bautzen electoral district.[4] Within the parliament she was a member of the Commission of Social and Health Matters.
Nazi years
Early in 1933 Körner attended a course at the "National Rosa Luxemburg Party Academy". However, in January 1933 the backdrop changed dramatically when
She spent the next five and a half years interned in Ravensbrück concentration camp, to the north of Berlin. In 1943 she learned that her husband and son were dead. At Easter in 1945 she arrived on foot in Dresden, accompanied by two fellow former inmates, and comrades from their resistance days, called Else Eisold and Liesel Grabs.[1]
Soviet occupation zone / German Democratic Republic
In Dresden, political activity being no longer outlawed, she became the Women's Secretary for the party's Dresden district, and secretary with the regional leadership team for
In 1955 she suffered a health crisis, with nervous exhaustion which appears to have resulted from overwork. She was still working intensively, including a good deal of travel in connection with consultancy work, when she was 70.
Olga Körner was one of the prominent Ravensbrück concentration camp inmates who were publicly commemorated during the liberation celebrations at the Ravensbrück National Memorial of the GDR, like Yevgenia Klemm, Antonina Nikiforova, Mela Ernst, Rosa Jochmann, Katja Niederkirchner, Rosa Thälmann, Olga Benário Prestes, Martha Desrumaux, Minna Villain, and Maria Grollmuß.[6]
She died on 22 December 1969 at the age of 82.[4] After her death, a secondary school in Dresden was named after her in 1974, and her bronze bust was unveiled in front of a retirement home in Dresden-Zschertnitz in 1978.
References
- ^ a b Ischilke. "Olga Körner". FrauenBildungsHaus Dresden e. V. (Frauenstadtarchiv Dresden). Retrieved 26 June 2016.
- ^ "Vortrag zu Olga Körner". Stadtverwaltung Dresden. 3 March 2006. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
- ^ "Kommunistische Partei (Reichstag photo-portraits)". Reichstags-Handbuch, Wahlperiode. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München. 1932. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Andreas Herbst; Hermann Weber. "Körner, Olga * 3.6.1887, † 22.12.1969". Handbuch der Deutschen Kommunisten. Karl Dietz Verlag, Berlin & Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur, Berlin. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
- ^ a b c "Körner (Dresden), geb. Schubert, Olga". Reichstags-Handbuch. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München. 1932. p. 131. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
- ISBN 978-3-631-63678-7.