Gertrud Morgner

Gertrud Morgner (born Gertrud Müller: 8 August 1887 – 20 July 1978) was a German politician and, especially as a young woman, women's rights campaigner. She was a co-founder of the Jena branch of the Communist Party.

In 1932 she emigrated with her husband to the Soviet Union. Her husband was arrested in 1941; the circumstances of his death remain unknown. Gertrud was refused permission to leave the Soviet Union till 1954, when she returned to what had by this time become the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) where she found she had acquired a certain official celebrity, honoured as a "[Communist] party veteran".

Life Family provenance and early years Gertrud Müller was born in Gera, in the Principality of Reuss-Gera. Her father was a weaver. She trained for work in garment manufacturing and, in 1907, married the trades official (1884–1943). After this, during a period of intensifying social and political tensions in Germany, Morgner led a Communist Party operational cell ("KPD-Betriebszelle").

In May 1954 Gertrud Morgner was permitted to travel to East Germany, where she became an SED party member. She became active in the Democratic Women's League ("Demokratischer Frauenbund Deutschlands" / DFD), the National Front and the (East German) Peace Council. but at the same time her fate and that of her husband in the Soviet Union were not to be subjects for public discussion. This cemetery was the one reserved for the bodies of East German political leaders and national heroes.

Awards and honours 1959 Honorary citizenship of Jena 1972 Patriotic Order of Merit in gold 1977 Patriotic Order of Merit gold clasp