Henriette Ackermann

Henriette Ackermann (8 September 1887 – 31 August 1977) was an outspoken left-wing German political activist and politician (KPD, USPD).

She survived at least two periods in the Ravensbrück concentration camp during the Nazi years.

Early life Ackermann was born in Ehrenfeld, since 1888 a quarter of Cologne. She was one of her parents' two daughters. The family ran a barbers' shop. Ackermann backed Karl Liebknecht's candidacy to succeed him: she was expelled from the party.

Although she was at liberty after some months, she later wrote that as a former communist she found herself stigmatised, one practical result of which was that it became particularly hard for her to find work in Hitler's Germany. It is recorded that Ackermann underwent two further periods of detention, both spent in the Ravensbrück concentration camp, during 1939/40 and again during 1944/45.

War ended, formally, in May 1945, and with it the Nazi régime. Initially Ackermann worked as a book keeper in Berlin. Later she worked for a time in a clerical position for the Cologne city council. She was no longer politically active, however.

Death and legacy Ackermann died on 31 August 1977, a week short of her 90th birthday, in a senior-living home at Brühl near Cologne. In March 1993, a new street in Cologne was named after her.