Bertha Thalheimer

{{Short description|German left-wing peace activist and politician}} [[File:Bertha Thalheimer.jpg|right|thumb|Bertha Thalheimer]] '''Bertha Thalheimer''' (17 March 1883 – 23 April 1959) was a German left-wing peace activist who became a politician ([[Communist Party of Germany|KPD]]).<ref name=BTlautHDK>{{cite web|url=https://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/wer-war-wer-in-der-ddr-%2363%3b-1424.html?ID=5283|title=Thalheimer, Bertha * 17.3.1883, † 23.4.1959|work=Handbuch der Deutschen Kommunisten|publisher=Karl Dietz Verlag, Berlin & Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur, Berlin|author1=[[Hermann Weber]]|author2=[[Andreas Herbst]]|accessdate=19 June 2017}}</ref><ref name=BTlautUB>{{cite web|url=https://www2.landesarchiv-bw.de/ofs21/olf/einfueh.php?bestand=51045| title= August Thalheimer (geboren am 18.03.1884) und Bertha Thalheimer (geboren am 17.03.1883) aus Affaltrach, gehörten zu den prägenden sozialistisch-kommunistischen Persönlichkeiten in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts....|work=Findbuch PL725|date=August 2015|author=Ute Bitz|publisher=Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart|accessdate=19 June 2017}}</ref><ref name=BTlautLS>{{cite web|title= Bertha Thalheimer und die sozialistische Friedensbewegung während des Ersten Weltkriegs |url=http://www.schule-bw.de/faecher-und-schularten/gesellschaftswissenschaftliche-und-philosophische-faecher/landeskunde-landesgeschichte/module/bp_2016/imperialismus_und_erster_weltkrieg/heilbronn_im_ersten_weltkrieg/(AB4_Bertha_Thalheimer.pdf| publisher=Landesinstitut für Schulentwicklung (LS), Stuttgart|work=Arbeitskreis für Landeskunde/Landesgeschichte RP Stuttgart |accessdate=19 June 2017}}</ref>

== Life == === Provenance and early years === Bertha Thalheimer was born in [[:de:Affaltrach|Affaltrach]] in southern Germany, a short distance to the east of [[Heilbronn]]. Moritz Thalheimer, her father, was a prosperous businessman and real estate agent with an active interest in politics. He was close to some of the leading [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|Social Democrat]] left-wingers of his generation, including [[Clara Zetkin]] and the [[Franz Mehring|Mehrings]]. Thanks to her father's political connections she also met the pioneering thinker [[Rosa Luxemburg]] fairly early on.<ref name=BTlautHDK/>

Bertha was almost precisely one year older than her brother [[August Thalheimer|August]] who grew up to become a [[Marxist philosophy|Marxist philosopher]] and, like her, a political activist.<ref name=BTlautLS/><ref name=ATlautHDK>{{cite web|url=https://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/wer-war-wer-in-der-ddr-%2363%3b-1424.html?ID=5282|title=Thalheimer, August * 18.3.1884, † 19.9.1948|work=Handbuch der Deutschen Kommunisten|publisher=Karl Dietz Verlag, Berlin & Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur, Berlin|author1=[[Hermann Weber]]|author2=[[Andreas Herbst]]|accessdate=19 June 2017}}</ref> As long as they both lived, Bertha and her brother would be closely aligned politically.<ref name=BTlautHDK/>

The family relocated to [[Winnenden]] in 1892 and then, to [[Cannstatt]] in 1899. Here she completed her schooling at the [[Gymnasium (Germany)|Boys' Gymnasium (secondary school)]], for which special permission was obtained, presumably because there was no place available at an appropriately academic girls' school.<ref name=BTlautLS/> Her brother, meanwhile, concluded his schooling at an elite Jesuit school, although the Thalheimers were a Jewish family.<ref name=BTlautLS/> On leaving school she moved to Berlin to study [[:de:Volkswirtschaftslehre|Applied Economics (''"Nationalökonomie"'')]].<ref name=BTlautLS/>

=== Politics === In 1910, the Thalheimer siblings joined the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|Social Democratic Party]]. They gravitated easily to the left of the party working on political matters with friends such as [[Rosa Luxemburg]], [[Clara Zetkin]], [[Friedrich Westmeyer|Fritz Westmeyer]] and the [[Franz Mehring|Mehrings]].<ref name=BTlautUB/> Bertha saw her most important task as the political education of young people.<ref name=AuBTlautPMuAG/> August and Bertha Thalheimer both wrote for [[Die Gleichheit|"Gleichheit" (''"Equality"'')]], the feminist magazine edited by [[Clara Zetkin]], and for the regional socialist newspaper "Göppinger Freie Volkszeitung" for which [[August Thalheimer]] became the editor.<ref name=BTlautLS/> By 1914, Bertha Thalheimer had become a member of the regional [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|SPD]] party executive.<ref name=BTlautHDK/>

=== War: peace activism === [[File:Illustrierte Geschichte der Deutschen Revolution Page 135 Edit Crop.jpg|thumb|right|Thalheimer (third row, left) among participants of the Reich Conference of the [[Spartacus League]], 1 January 1916]] [[First World War|War]] broke out in July 1914. The decision by the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|party]] leadership, citing "defense of the fatherland", to implement what amounted to a [[Burgfriedenspolitik|parliamentary truce (''"Burgfriedenspolitik"'')]] on votes involving funding for the war was contentious within the party from the outset. An antiwar group quickly emerged in the [[Württemberg]] SPD with [[Clara Zetkin]], [[Friedrich Westmeyer|Fritz Westmeyer]] and the Thalheimer siblings at its heart. They quickly linked up with the party's pacifist group at a national level, becoming known as the International Group, and headed up by [[Karl Liebknecht]] and their friend [[Rosa Luxemburg]].<ref name=BTlautHDK/> In 1915 Bertha Thalheimer was a co-founder of the anti-war [[Spartacus League]],<ref name=BTlautUB/> and was one of the organisers of its launch conference held in Berlin in January 1916.<ref name=BTlautHDK/> In September 1915, together with [[Ernst Meyer (German politician)|Ernst Meyer]], she represented the league at the [[Zimmerwald Conference]], an international conference of socialist pacifists held near [[Bern]] in [[Switzerland]]. She also represented the Spartacus League six months later at the follow-up [[Kienthal Conference]]. The conferences demanded an immediate peace, without territorial annexations. They called on the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|German SPD]] to reject further war funding.<ref name=BTlautLS/> During these years Bertha Thalheimer and her sister-in-law Cläre Thalheimer were also working closely with [[Leo Jogiches]].<ref name=BTlautHDK/> Although the anti-war message gained popular traction, the political authorities in the leading belligerent powers - except in the [[Russian Empire]] - were untouched by it: in March 1917 Thalheimer, who had been participating in anti-war street protests in defiance of court orders,<ref name=AuBTlautPMuAG/> was arrested for "anti-military activities" (''wegen "antimilitaristischer Tätigkeit"''): in October 1917 she was convicted on charges of high treason by a Stuttgart court, which sentenced her to two years in prison.<ref name=BTlautHDK/><ref name=BTlautUB/> Her co-accused, Cläre (or Klara) Thalheimer, was acquitted. Bertha served more than a year of the sentence in [[:de:Schloss Delitzsch|Castle Delitsch]] near [[Halle (Saale)|Halle]] which had been adapted for use as a jail.<ref name=BTlautLS/>

=== Communist party === [[First World War|War]] ended in military defeat for Germany in November 1918. A [[German Revolution of 1918–19|wave of revolutions]] broke out across the country. Revolutionaries broke into prisons, releasing the inmates. Elsewhere the panicking authorities released prisoners in order to averts such attacks. Bertha Thalheimer was one of thousands of prisoners who found themselves abruptly released. By the end of 1918 she was participating in what became the founding conference of the [[Communist Party of Germany|Communist Party]] which took place in [[Berlin]] between 30 December 1918 and 1 January 1919. The party leaders were the former leaders of the [[Spartacus League]] of which in many ways the Communist Party was a continuation, although by the end of January 1919 the two [[Karl Liebknecht|most]] [[Rosa Luxemburg|prominent]] of these had been killed by "[[Freikorps]]" volunteers. Bertha Thalheimer took on responsibilities for guiding the women's activities in the party.<ref name=BTlautHDK/><ref name=BTlautLS/><ref name=BTlautUB/>

Thalheimer married the mechanic Karl Wilhelm Schöttle in 1920: the marriage ended in divorce in 1933.<ref name=BTlautHDK/> While [[August Thalheimer|her brother]], for a couple of years during the early 1920s, took a leading position in the party, Bertha Thalheimer was a co-founder in 1925, of the [[:de:Roter Frontkämpferbund#Der „Rote Frauen und Mädchenbund“ (RFMB)|Red Women's and Girls' League (''"Der „Rote Frauen und Mädchenbund“"'' / RFMB)]].<ref name=BTlautHDK/> However, as the decade progressed the [[Communist Party of Germany|party leadership]] was taken over by hardline Stalinists. The increasingly bitter rivalry in the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Moscow party]] between [[Stalin]] and those, notably [[Leon Trotsky]], who doubted the direction in which he was taking the [[Soviet Union]], found strong echoes in the [[Communist Party of Germany|German party]] under the leadership of [[Ernst Thälmann]]. [[August Thalheimer]] was increasingly critical and spent much of the 1920s being kept out of the way in Moscow. He became ill and returned to Germany late in 1927, however.<ref name=ATlautHDK/> As an intellectually formidable representative of the party's "anti-Stalin" right wing he was distrusted by the party leadership and, early in 1929, expelled from the [[Communist Party of Germany|German party]].<ref name=ATlautHDK/> Bertha Thalheimer, who shared her brother's rejection of domination of the party from Moscow, was expelled from the [[Communist Party of Germany|German party]] at about the same time.<ref name=BTlautHDK/><ref name=BTlautLS/><ref name=BTlautUB/>

=== Communist Party (Opposition) === A large number of people were expelled from the Communist Party in 1929 and many of them joined a newly formed alternative communist party known as the [[Communist Party of Germany (Opposition)|Communist Party (Opposition) (''"Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (Opposition)"'' / KPDO / KPO)]] of which her brother had been a co-founder.<ref name=BTlautHDK/><ref name=BTlautLS/><ref name=BTlautUB/> Bertha Thalheimer worked for the KPO as a speaker and as a journalist, writing contributions for the party's bimonthly newspaper "Arbeiterpolitik"<ref name=Arbeiterpolitik>{{cite web |title=The Struggle for the United Front in Germany, 1920–23 (introduction to an article by August Thalheimer)|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/thalheimer/works/ufront20-23.html|work=From Revolutionary History, Vol. 5 No. 2, Spring 1994, pp. 74–91. ... Transcribed by Alun Morgan for the Revolutionary History Website.|publisher=Marxists Internet Archive|date=21 September 2011|accessdate=20 June 2017}}</ref> and for the Stuttgart-based "Arbeiter-Tribüne".

=== Nazi years === The political backdrop changed, as it seemed, permanently in January 1933 when the [[Hitler|Nazi Party]] [[:de:Machtergreifung|took power]] in [[Weimar Germany|Germany]] and lost little time in [[Gleichschaltung|transforming]] the country into a [[one-party state|one-]][[Nazi Party|party]] [[Enabling Act of 1933|dictatorship]]. The Nazis had built their support base on the traditional populist twin pillars of hope and hate. The principal targets of their hate were [[Communist Party of Germany|Communists]] and [[Jews]]. From a Nazi perspective Bertha Thalheimer qualified as both Communist and Jewish. This was the context in which Karl Wilhelm Schöttle, who was categorised as an [[Aryan race|Aryan]], and Bertha Thalheimer were now divorced, although she continued to receive material support from her former husband.<ref name=BTlautUB/> Meanwhile [[August Thalheimer|her brother]] emigrated, initially to France and ultimately to [[Cuba]].<ref name=ATlautHDK/>

Bertha remained in Germany, under constant threat of persecution but nevertheless well supported by friends. At one stage she was earning a living by selling [[coffee]] from door to door.<ref name=BTlautHDK/> In 1941 she was forcibly transferred into a so-called [[:de:Judenhaus|"Jews House" (''ein "Judenhaus"'')]] in [[Stuttgart]].<ref name=AuBTlautPMuAG>{{cite web|title=August und Bertha Thalheimer ... Zum Leben und Wirken der in Affaltrach geborenen Kommunisten (exhibition programme)|url=https://www.gruene-weinsbergertal.de/fileadmin/weinsbergertal/dateien/WeinsbergunddasWeinsbergerTalimNS.pdf|work=Weinsberg und das Weinsberger Tal im Nationalsozialismus|author=P. Maaß & A. Gold (compilers)|date=October 2009|accessdate=20 June 2017}}</ref> In 1943 she was deported to the [[Theresienstadt concentration camp]].<ref name=BTlautLS/> She survived.<ref name=AuBTlautPMuAG/>

=== After the war === After she was liberated by the [[Red army|Soviet army]] in May 1945, Bertha Thalheimer immediately returned to [[Stuttgart]] and rejoined the no-longer outlawed [[Communist Party of Germany|Communist Party]]. What remained of Germany was now divided into four [[Allied-occupied Germany|military occupation zones]]. Stuttgart was administered as part of the American zone. Bertha tried to arrange a job and a return from exile for her brother.<ref name=BTlautUB/> However, with [[Cold War]] tensions rising rapidly as the [[Soviet Union]] consolidated its hold on central Europe, the military authorities were not willing to import a high-profile communist intellectual into Germany's US occupation zone, and when [[August Thalheimer]] died in September 1948 it was still as a German exile, still in [[Cuba]].<ref name=BTlautUB/> His widow, Bertha's sister in law Cläre, now left Cuba with her son: her destination was not Germany, however, but [[Australia]], where she settled in [[Wandiligong]] and made a new life for herself as a teacher.<ref name=ATlautHDK/>

A [[Merger of the KPD and SPD into the Socialist Unity Party of Germany|series of]] [[Berlin Blockade|troubling events]] in the [[Soviet occupation zone]] between 1945 and 1948 gave rise to suspicions that the [[Communist Party of Germany]] was in danger of becoming a tool of [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] foreign policy, and while levels of support for [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany|its successor]] in the Soviet zone are hard to determine objectively, in the American, British and French occupation zones, declining levels of support suggest widespread disenchantment with it. Disappointed, Bertha Thalheimer left the [[Communist Party of Germany|Communist Party]] (again) in 1948.<ref name=BTlautLS/> She joined the new [[:de:Gruppe Arbeiterpolitik|Gruppe Arbeiterpolitik]] organisation which was in many respects a survivors' revived version of the old [[Communist Party of Germany (Opposition)|KPO]]. The group took its world political outlook largely from the writings of the format KPO policy man, Bertha's brother, [[August Thalheimer]] who was dying in Cuba during this time. Within the trades union movement of the zones which became, after May 1949, the [[German Federal Republic|German Federal Republic (West Germany)]], the group promoted a robustly anti-Stalinist version of socialism.<ref name=GFSA>{{cite web|title=Wer wir sind|url=http://www.arbeiterpolitik.de/index.htm|author=Gruppe Arbeiterpolitik|date=March 2006|publisher=Gesellschaft zur Förderung des Studiums der Arbeiterbewegung e.V., Hamburg|accessdate=20 June 2017|archive-date=12 June 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612100051/http://www.arbeiterpolitik.de/index.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> From 1952 Bertha Thalheimer took responsibility for Arbeiterpolitik's newspaper.<ref name=BTlautLS/>

However, Thalheimer's health had been permanently damaged by the rigours of life at the [[Theresienstadt concentration camp]]. On 23 April 1959 Bertha Schöttle-Thalheimer died in [[Stuttgart]].<ref name=BTlautHDK/> The street Bertha-Thalheimer-Weg in Stuttgart is named after her.

==References== {{reflist|35em}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thalheimer, Bertha}} [[Category:People from Heilbronn (district)]] [[Category:19th-century German Jews]] [[Category:Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians]] [[Category:Communist Party of Germany politicians]] [[Category:Communist Party of Germany (Opposition) politicians]] [[Category:Theresienstadt Ghetto survivors]] [[Category:People from the Kingdom of Württemberg]] [[Category:1883 births]] [[Category:1959 deaths]] [[Category:Politicians from Stuttgart]]