Lisa Ullrich

Lisa Ullrich (12 August 1900 – 5 June 1986) was a German activist and politician (KPD, SED). She was elected to the national parliament (Reichstag) in July 1932, remaining a member till March 1933, after the Nazi take-over.

Life Provenance and early years Elisabeth "Lisa" Ullrich was born in Odessa. Her father was a print worker. At the end of July 1914 war broke out between Germany and Russia (along with their respective allies) and in 1915 the family were expelled from Russia, ending up in Berlin where her father took work as a typesetter.

Pacifist and communist In 1917, despite her youth and gender, she joined a trades union.

Marriage and divorce In 1924 Lisa Ullrich married the machinist and fellow-Communist Adolf Dreßler. According to one source her motive was to secure German citizenship. There is no sign that she was accompanied by her husband during her subsequent stay in Moscow, and in (or before) 1927 the marriage ended in divorce: sources on her subsequent career continue to identify Lisa Ullrich by her unmarried name. However, the Nazis took power in January 1933 and lost no time in transforming Germany into a one-party dictatorship. Political activity - except in support of the Nazi Party - was banned. Lisa Ullrich was one of those who participated in held at the a short distance outside Berlin on 7 February 1933. The meeting would subsequently be celebrated as both the first and last meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee held in Nazi Germany. The Reichstag fire at the end of February 1933 was immediately blamed on "communists", and it became abundantly clear that communists, in particular, were in the authorities' sights. Ullrich nevertheless continued with her now illegal political activities among the working women of Berlin. In November 1933 the party leadership sent her to Magdeburg to take on the leadership of the local party branch.

In the summer of 1938 the concentration camp received a visit from Heinrich Himmler, a senior and energetic member of the government whose responsibilities extended over a remarkably wide range of domestic administrative matters. Concentration camps were a responsibility to which he devoted much time and attention, and there was nothing particularly unusual about Himmler turning up, apparently unannounced, to inspect a concentration camp. He was accompanied by a number of senior Nazi paramilitaries ("SS" officials), each of them armed with a large pad of paper and a pen. Every word that Himmler uttered, along with other matters arising, was carefully written down. Lichtenburg at this time was used to house political opponents of the government. Himmler picked out a few inmates for an apparently impromptu meeting. Those selected included the wife of Mattach Wallek, a prominent trades union leader before 1933, and other wives of men known to Himmler, presumably, on account of their political activities in the past. Lisa Ullrich was also picked out, presumably of particular interest to the authorities because of her own record. It appears to have been at some stage during this visit that Himmler asked Ullrich what was wrong with her arm. During the "meeting" Himmler pointed out at some length how the Nazis had struggled to make life better for working people, and as details of the economic progress made by the country since 1933 were rehearsed the Communists were obliged to agree about many examples of improved living standards. The discussion even got to the point where Ullrich ventured that if the Nazis were acting out the agenda of the Communist Party so assiduously, then it was not clear why she and her comrades had spent up to six years in a concentration camp. Several communist inmates were indeed released back to their families then and there, with a handshake from the Reichsführer, but Lisa Ullrich was not among them. Lisa Ullrich's name was on it. She was one of approximately 5,000 people arrested overnight on 22/23 August 1944, and was returned to Ravensbrück. There she was deprived of the medical supplies necessary to treat her health problems. Within her "accommodation block" her fellow internees elected her as "block senior". Responding to an obvious and urgent need in a women's concentration camp, she organised a "Mother and child" facility, collecting a team of four fellow inmates, comprising two doctors from Germany and Czechoslovakia, a paediatrician from Czechoslovakia, and a baby nurse. At the time the camp contained an estimated 150 pregnant women, 100 mothers of infants, and 96 babies and infants. She later recalled the struggle to try and ensure that all the "kids" survived, although given the absence of basic necessities in the camp this proved "well nigh impossible". 1973 Patriotic Order of Merit in gold 1980 Patriotic Order of Merit Gold Clasp

Because of the sequence in which these awards were normally made, it is extremely likely that at some point between 1954 and 1969 she was also a recipient of the Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze.