Maria Rentmeister-Rettmann

Maria Rentmeister (27 January 1905 – 10 May 1996) was a German Women's and cultural policy maker - who became an anti-government resistance activist after 1933. She spent much of the time during the twelve Nazi years abroad or, later, in state detention. In 1945 she relocated to what now became the Soviet occupation zone (after October 1949 East Germany) where she became the first General Secretary of the politically important Democratic Women's League ("Demokratischer Frauenbund Deutschlands" / DFD).

Since the 2020s, Rentmeister's life, work and achievements have been researched in more depth in contemporary German historiography of the post-war period and highlighted in a number of publications. For this purpose, her extensive legacy in the German Federal Archives in Berlin was also used, as well as radio and film documents.

Life Provenance and early years Rentmeister was born in (Oberhausen) in Germany's heavily industrialised Ruhr/Rhine region, the eldest of her parents' six children. Her father was master tailor, independent entrepreneur, Chairman of the Tailors' Guild and Conservative city councillor in Sterkrade.

Nor did Red Kate miss an opportunity to share her political passions with her husband simply because he was away at the front. She used to send him stock market reports and financial statements in respect of the large industrial firms in the Ruhr regions. "That way you know what it is you are really fighting for: the 'Fatherland' is Krupp [a famously profitable armaments conglomerate]" ("Damit du weißt wofür du fällst ... das Vaterland ist die Firma Krupp""). Käthe Rentmeister was a member of the Social Democratic Party while her children were small, but in 1929 she would join the Communists.

Käthe Rentmeister's six children could not avoid the effects growing up in an atmosphere of heightened political awareness. Sources differ as to whether it was in 1930 or 1932 that Maria Rentmeister joined the Communist Party, but she was clearly a member before 1933. This also involved taking over administrative responsibility for the World Committee's newspaper, "Weltfront" which was produced under the editorship of Albert Norden who many years later would become an influential senior journalist in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). More immediately, it was through Norden that Rentmeister become involved with the party's "Weltfrauenkomitee" ("World Women's Committee"), for which she also worked. but most infer, that Beuttel and Rentmeister still had not taken this step when, in July 1944, Beuttel was executed at Cologne.

Party work from outside Germany In 1936 Rentmeister transferred from Paris to the Netherlands where the focus of her party work was on political "education". for the German Communist Party leadership's "western division" on the "Westdeutsche Kampfblätter" (resistance newspaper), produced for (illegal) distribution among comrades living "underground" (unregistered at their town halls), across the frontier in Nazi Germany. However, the German army invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940 and very quickly took the country over. Rentmeister was caught and arrested by the Gestapo soon afterwards. between May and July 1945. generally seen as the precursor to the powerful Party Central Committee which emerged, formally, in July 1950. She also served, between 1946 and 1948, as a member of the (""). Most of the members of the postwar Party Executive went on to become Central Committee members following the launch of the German Democratic Republic, but Rentmeister did not. At a meeting of the Party Executive in Autumn 1948 it fell to Rentmeister to deliver an unwelcome message to party comrades, including the future leadership of the German Democratic Republic. Among the workers in the country, a mood of desolation prevailed ("... eine desolate Stimmung unter den Arbeitern" herrschte). More alarmingly still, the workers displayed strongly anti-Soviet attitudes ("... starke antisowjetische Einstellungen"). It was not something that those present were equipped to address effectively, but report of that speech does provide an early glimpse of the slow-burn build-up to the 1953 uprising.

At the Second People's Congress, on 17/18 March 1948, she was elected for membership of the first German People's Council, mandated to draw up a new constitution (based on a document that had already been provided to it). She was also one of those selected, the next year, for membership of the second People's Council which replaced the first in May 1949 and went on to constitute itself, in October 1949, as the East German parliament (Volkskammer). At that point she did not remain as a Volkskammer member. Rentmeister's political career was very far from over, however.

In 1947 Rentmeister was one of the founders of the Democratic Women's League (Demokratischer Frauenbund Deutschlands/ DFD), serving as a member of its national executive. Between 1947 and 1949 she also served as its general secretary. The DFD was one of five mass organisations which, under the centralised Leninist government model being adopted, was designed to broaden the popular legitimacy of the overall political structure. Alongside the officially designated bloc parties, the mass organisations received from the ruling party their own fixed quotas of seats in the national parliament .

In 1949 Rentmeister took charge at the national Department for Cultural Enlightenment at the . Here, till 1954, she was in charge of developing East German cultural relations with foreign countries. Between 1951 and 1954 she also took on the deputy chairmanship at the . Between 1954 and 1958 Rentmeister was the acting head of the National Arts Department within the . Between 1958 and 1960 she headed up the press and publicity activities of Progress Film, the country's monopoly film distributor. In 1960, officially on health grounds, she retired from her professional career.

After 1960 she worked as a volunteer for the Party Central Committee's . She also involved herself with the Commission for the History of the Local Labour Movement which had been established by the Berlin party leadership team ("").

Personal Rentmeister was married firstly to the Oberhausen communist Wilhelm Bettinger and secondly to (1902-1981). Both were actively engaged in anti-Nazi resistance after 1933. Both spent time in prison and / or camps because of their resistance activities. Both nevertheless survived Nazi imprisonment. Aside from this, details, including the dates of the marriages, are not disclosed in sources. Rentmeister also had a daughter.