Olga Brandt-Knack

Olga Brandt-Knack (born Olga Brandt: 29 June 1885 – 1 August 1978) was a Hamburg dancer, choreographer and dance teacher. She was also politically engaged, having joined the Social Democratic Party in 1918. Her career at the Hamburg State Opera was abruptly terminated in 1933 after the new government decided she was "politically unreliable". During the ensuing twelve years she was kept under surveillance by the security services and temporarily arrested by them. She supported herself during this period by working as an appointments clerk in the medical sector. After 1945, by which time she was aged 60, she rejoined the (no longer outlawed) Social Democratic Party and turned to city politics, serving between 1946 and 1953 as a high-profile member of the "Hamburgische Bürgerschaft" ("Hamburg Parliament").

Life Olga Brandt was born in Hamburg. Her dancing career began, when she was ten, at the children's dance school of the Hamburg State Theatre (as the city's State Opera was known at that time). She was a solo dancer by 1907 and became, in 1922, the leading ballerina of the ballet company. It was also in, or shortly after, 1918 that she teamed up with the actor Adolf Johannsson to set up a "Workers' Speech and Movement Chorus" ("Arbeiter-Sprech- und Bewegungschor"). Later, in 1932, she joined with Lola Rogge (and others), to form the "Vereinigung Tanz" ("Dance Association") in Hamburg. On the national stage 1932 was a year of intensifying political polarisation and deadlock: at the Hamburg State Opera Olga Brandt-Knack lost her position as lead ballerina on account of her political activities. It is not clear how long the marriage lasted, but it was over by 1928, which was the year in which Knack married his second wife.

She rejoined the SPD in 1945. From 1948 she also worked as an advisor on women's issues to the Gewerkschaft Kunst (confederation of determinedly independent arts related trades unions). She was, in addition, one of those who re-founded The Falcons, a socialist youth organisation that had originated in 1904 but then been banned during the Hitler years.

Between 30 October 1946 and 1 November 1953, Olga Brandt-Knack served as an SPD member of the "Hamburgische Bürgerschaft" ("Hamburg Parliament"). After that, till 1961, she served as deputy head of the city's police authority.