Ruth Oesterreich

Ruth Oesterreich (6 June 1894 – 25 June 1943) was a German activist-politician (KPD) who became involved, after 1933, in anti-government activism and Swiss-funded child welfare work among German political refugees. She was executed by hanging.

Life The politics of youth Anna Ruth Erna Oesterreich was born into a Protestant family in Dresden. Her father was employed as a plumber's assistant. She was involved in socialist politics from an early age, joining the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1912 and working in a secretarial position with the editorial office at the Dresdner Volkszeitung (SPD regional newspaper). During the war years, on 1 May 1916, she participated in a large anti-war demonstration organised in Berlin by the Marxist anti-militarist "Spartakusbund". (There is likely to have been significant overlap between the two organisations.) The marriage was a second marriage for both Ruth and Jakob: it was followed in 1924 by the birth of their daughter, also called Ruth.

Prague

In Verviers, Oesterreich came across Stephan and Elsa Mathar, who shared her political passions and convictions. Stephan Mathar was an industrial chemist by training and profession, and a former member of the German Communist Party who had switched to the SAPD and then fled with his wife to Verviers where he had successfully set himself up in a small business through which he had frequent contact with truck drivers passing through the town.

On 21 April 1941 Ruth Oesterreich (mother) and her daughter, were arrested by the Gestapo, "betrayed by a Belgian", according to the evidently still embittered assessment passed on by her granddaughter,

Gestapo detention Mother and daughter spent six weeks under interrogation at the Sint-Gillis jail (Brussels), which by this time was under the administration of the German police authorities. Early in June 1941 they were both transported to Aachen and from there, in July 1941, to a prison in Karlsruhe, where they were detained in "pre-trial detention". Ruth Oesterreich (mother) remained in the prison at Karlsruhe for another year. At least one source also mentions the (by this time routinely invoked in such cases) accusations of "advantaging the enemy and damaging national military capability" ("Feindbegünstigung [und] Wehrkraftzersetzung"). She was accused in respect of her communist/socialists activism, her "espionage" on behalf of the discredited (and defeated) Spanish Republican régime, and her involvement with anti-Nazi circles in Paris. Mention was made of the "hate speak" writing against the German state that she had smuggled to exiled emigrant groups.

Of her co-accused, Elsa Mathar insisted that she had been unaware of her husband's activities and had known nothing of his links with Oesterreich: Elsa Mathar was acquitted and released. Stephan Mathar accepted that he had appeared to follow Oesterreich's instructions, but in reality had never channelled any propaganda material to Germany. He had indeed told her that he had done so, but nevertheless, he had not. The court nevertheless concluded – almost certainly correctly – that together Ruth Oesterreich and Stephan Mathar had smuggled propaganda material of foreign provenance into Germany. Unlike her co-accused, Ruth Oesterreich took full responsibility for her actions, although she insisted that she had never had any involvement in "espionage", pointing out that information she had disseminated outside Germany was already accessible to anyone getting hold of German language emigrant magazines. The court accepted that indeed she had not "betrayed any state secrets". But Oesterreich freely agreed that she had worked for the Spanish Republic and used all her energies to opposing National Socialism.

The trial lasted just one day. At the end of it the court summed up its verdict in respect of Ruth Oesterreich and Stephan Mather: "heir removal is ... necessary for the survival struggle that the German people are currently having to undertake". They were sentenced to death for disseminating treason.

Execution Ruth Oesterreich lived for slightly more than four months following her conviction and sentencing. She was held at the vast Moabit prison complex in north-central Berlin. It was possible to smuggle out small notes, as a result she was able to retain some level of contact with her daughter. Her daughter died in 1999, but her notes from prison survive, now in the care of her granddaughter. She got hold of a copy of Goethe's Iphigenia in Tauris, which she read to fill the hours and distract her while waiting to be killed. She also took a lively interest in the progress of her case. In what was probably the penultimate note she was able to smuggle out to her daughter she wrote: "yesterday 43rd hiatus in the executions. Still two more ahead of me! Now the decision will come soon."

On 25 June 1943 seven women and ten men were executed at the Plötzensee Execution facility, across on the far side of the construction site for Westhafen Canal. Ruth Oesterreich was one of them. Stephan Mathar had already been executed on 28 May 1943.

Posterity Ruth Oesterreich (mother) did not live long enough to be aware of the birth of her granddaughter, Ilse, during the first part of in 1944. It took place in Karlsruhe, where Ruth Oesterreich (daughter) was still living, still under Gestapo supervision.