Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich

Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich (15 September 1901 – 16 June 1979) was a German novelist, activist, professor of ancient history, and the first woman to be elected full member of the German Academy of Sciences. Oglala Lakota painter Arthur Amiotte referred to her as the “German Ella Deloria: grandmotherly, kind, and very interested in people.” In 1907, her family moved to Stuttgart, where Welskopf-Henrich first enrolled in school. At age nine, she was gifted by an uncle James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, which sparked in her a lifelong interest and solidarity with Native American peoples.

At age ten, she read in a newspaper about Mexico's president deploying armed troops against the Yaqui people of Sonora resisting displacement

In 1913, Welskopf-Henrich's family relocated to Berlin, where she attended high-school at the Auguste-Victoria Lyceum. She enrolled in a humanist curriculum and graduated (Abitur) in 1921. At Frederick-William University, she studied philosophy, ancient history, law, and economics. She was urged to pursue a post-doctoral degree (habilitation), but her academic career was cut short by her family's finances due to hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic.

Resistance activity During Nazi reign, Welskopf-Henrich took part in the Confessing Church, a movement within German Protestantism in opposition to Nazi efforts to unify Protestant churches into a single, pro-Nazi German Evangelical Church. active in the resistance movement. She clandestinely delivered food and medication to interned Jews and French prisoners of war and assisted inmates from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp brought into Berlin as laborers. In 1944, she helped one, Rudolf Welskopf, whom she later married, escape after ten years in captivity.

After the war War ended in May 1945, leaving a large region surrounding Berlin administered as the Soviet occupation zone and Welskopf-Henrich remained in what would later become East Berlin. In 1946, she was employed as a senior secretary in the city administration. Her decision to join the Communist Party may also have been influenced by her 1946 marriage to Rudolf Welskopf, who had been a member of the KPD since 1930. She was unable to be as uncritical as her husband of Soviet-sponsored state socialism. An early version of her 1959 habilitation was rejected for publication and published only later. Based on a collection of quotes on ancient history from Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, the thesis made apparent that Welskopf-Henrich had moved on from a Stalinist standpoint.

"Bertolds neue Welt" ("Bertold's New World") was conceived as a sequel to her earlier novel, "Jan und Jutta", and set in post-war Germany. Welskopf-Henrich did not seek publication during her lifetime, knowing her critical perspective of the GDR would foil publication. The novel was posthumously published in 2015. From 1952 to 1960, she was a research assistant and supervised lectures. In 1959, she habilitated with her thesis, "Leisure as a Problem in the Lives and Thoughts of the Hellenes from Homer to Aristotle". In 1960, she obtained her professorship in Ancient History. One year later, she was made the head of the Ancient History department "Soziale Typenbegriffe im alten Griechenland" ("Social Classes of Ancient Greece"), was published in 1981 in seven volumes by Akademie Verlag, Berlin.

Travels abroad Welskopf-Henrich's academic standing in the GDR allowed her to travel abroad. Her son writes of holiday trips to Hungary after 1956 and to Czechoslovakia after 1968. As her revisionist Western novels grew popular internationally, Welskopf-Henrich was able to travel beyond the confines of Soviet sponsored "fraternal socialism".

Travels to the US and Canada Between 1963 and 1974, Welskopf-Henrich undertook a succession of trips to the United States and to Canada to engage with the Lakota and to deepen her understanding of their lives, culture, and traditions.

Novels

Novels about the Weimar Republic, Nazism, and aftermath of World War II Welskopf-Henrich lived through World War I, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, and the GDR. In the 1950s she wrote several novels in part based on her experiences. "Bertolds neue Welt" ("Bertold's New World") a sequel to Welskopf-Henrich's earlier novel, "Jan und Jutta", and set in postwar Germany, was posthumously published in 2015. they give a humanistic portrayal of the Lakota and center on two pivotal events in US history: Custer’s 1876 defeat at the Little Bighorn and the 1973 Occupation of Wounded Knee. Both series remain in print. thumb Vernon Bellecourt, Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich, and Dennis Banks at Welskopf-Henrich's house, Berlin, 1975. Photo by Thomas Sandberg

Die Söhne der Großen Bärin “Die Söhne der Großen Bärin” (“Sons of the Great Bear”) began publication in 1951. It is a series of six novels set in the years 1862 to 1877. The hero, Harka, later called Tokei-ihto, is an Oglala Lakota youth, who defends Lakota lands against the U.S. Army, gold-seekers, and settlers, when gold is discovered in the Black Hills, and he rises to become a visionary leader of his people. Held prisoner at a U.S. Army fort during the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn, he escapes and leads his people to freedom across the Missouri into Canada. ethnologist Eva Lips, who also worked towards a realistic and humanistic portrayal of Native Americans. Welskopf-Henrich's standing in the GDR allowed her to receive Native American newspapers and monographs, which she read and then illegally distributed. After "Sons of the Great Bear", Welskopf-Henrich refused adaption of any of her novels, insisting that "too many liberties were taken". The adaptation turned out to be the first in a long, successful DEFA films featuring Native American stories.

Support of Native American causes Welskopf-Henrich was a life-long supporter of Native American causes. She worked to have Native American authors translated into German and went out of her way to support Native Americans in their efforts to improve their material conditions. She petitioned public officials on behalf of Native Americans she had met in prisons and offered to help pay for their legal defense. She was well-regarded on the Pine Ridge Reservation and felt it was crucial for the two cultures to communicate with each other.

After seeing Arthur Amiotte's work in the Sioux Indian Museum in Rapid City, Welskopf-Henrich sought out Amiotte. The two maintained a friendship and Welskopf-Henrich collaborated with Amiotte to bring works of his students to a show in Berlin. She also maintained a friendship with the Yanktonai Dakota painter Oscar Howe and his family. AIM co-founder Russell Means was a regular guest at Welskopf-Henrich's house, visiting her for the third time after the Geneva human rights conference.

Awards and honours 1951 First prize for youth literature of the German Democratic Republic for Die Söhne der Großen Bärin 1972 National Prize of the German Democratic Republic 3rd class 1974 Hervorragender Wissenschaftler des Volkes (Distinguished Scientist of the People)