Magda Langhans

Magda Langhans (born Magda Kelm: 16 July 1903 - 17 January 1987) was a Hamburg political activist and politician (KPD). Because of her political beliefs and activities she spent six of the twelve Nazi years in jail. After the war she resumed her membership of the Hamburgische Bürgerschaft (Hamburg state legislature).

There is a street named after Magda Langhans in Potsdam, but not in her own city, Hamburg.

Life Early years Magda Kelm was born into a working-class family in Hamburg, the eldest of seven siblings, growing up initially in the city's Hammerbrook quarter and relocating later to Dulsberg on the north side of town. Her father worked as a coachman: her mother as a cleaner. When her father died of tuberculosis her mother remarried, this time to a port worker, but there is little available information on Magda's step father and younger siblings.

Politics Early on she worked in domestic service, also employed as a kitchen assistant and in a wine shop. She was also regional chair for Hamburg of the Democratic Women's League of Germany. However, the East German authorities' savage suppression of the 1953 uprising led to an overall increase in east-west tensions during the 1950s and in 1957 the Democratic Women's League was banned in West Germany. By this time the league - even its West German branch set up only in 1950 - was seen as an agency of East Germany.

Wider Cold War tensions were also on display in August 1956 when the Federal Constitutional Court, after deliberating for five years, reluctantly endorsed the right of the political establishment to ban the Communist Party in West Germany. Langhans continued to work for the party, now illegally, in Bremen and Württemberg.

On 27 June 1978 Heinrich Langhans died, leaving Magda Lanhans a widow for her final years. She herself died in Hamburg on 17 January 1987.