Käthe Niederkirchner

Käthe "Katja" Niederkirchner (7 October 1909 - 28 September 1944) was a German Communist resistance activist who was fatally shot by Nazi paramilitaries on the night of 27/28 September 1944 at Ravensbrück concentration camp.

Although the number of people who died under similar circumstances is incalculably large, one of several things that marks out the case of Käthe Niederkirchner is the extent to which she was celebrated by public authorities after her death.

Biography Käthe Niederkirchner was born in Berlin. Käthe's mother, Helene, came from "a Slovak gypsy family" However, it is unclear whether they were ever able to live together, since in the chaos of war party authorities moved Wieland, who had been badly wounded in Spain, to a home for invalids in Osh (Kyrgyzstan). One indirect result of the German invasion of the Soviet Union was Soviet sponsorship of the "antifascist Free Germany" (Freies Deutschland) organisation, under the auspices of which Niederkirchner involved herself extensively in training/propaganda work with German prisoners of war.

As the end approached Käthe Niederkirchner was concerned that her father might never find out the truth about what had happened to her. In her cell she wrote a note which she managed to pass to a friend: "Today I want to take my leave of those I love. I have a feeling that I will not be here much longer. You must tell my dearest father that I have not disgraced him. I did not betray anyone. My thoughts are with him always." "Heute will ich Abschied nehmen von meinen Lieben. Ich habe eine Ahnung, daß ich nicht mehr lange hier sein werde. Meinem lieben, teuren Vater müßt ihr sagen, daß ich ihm keine Schande gemacht habe. Ich habe niemanden verraten. Meine Gedanken sind ständig bei ihm."

Käthe Niederkirchner's life ended after she was shot by Nazi paramilitaries on the night of 27/28 September 1944 at Ravensbrück concentration camp. The Kurt-Schwitters-Oberschule ("Kurt Schwitters Senior School") in (East) Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg quarter was renamed after Käthe Niederkirchner after the nearby Lippehner Straße had become the Käthe-Niederkirchner-Straße in 1974. The Hertwig Bünger Retirement Home in Radebeul was named after the liberal centrist politician Doris Hertwig-Bünger in 1929/30. In 1951 it was renamed "Feierabendheim Käthe Niederkirchner". The National People's Army's airforce battalion Number 9, stationed at Peenemünde had the honorific suffix "Käthe Niederkirchner" added to its name on 1 March 1970. The Air force service facility at nearby Karlshagen was similarly honoured in 1973. The East German Cargo ship "Käthe Niederkirchner" was named after her. In 1965, on just her second voyage since launch, the ship hit the headlines in Scotland when, carrying a cargo of sugar from Cuba towards Rostock, she ran aground (without loss of life) on Muckle Skerry, in the Pentland Firth. Käthe Niederkirchner was one of the prominent Ravensbrück concentration camp prisoners who were publicly commemorated during the liberation celebrations at the GDR's Ravensbrück National Memorial, like Yevgenia Klemm, Antonina Nikiforova, Mela Ernst, Rosa Jochmann, Olga Benário Prestes, Rosa Thälmann, Olga Körner, Martha Desrumeaux, Minna Villain, and Maria Grollmuß.