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. Grit Bühler: Eigenmächtig, frauenbewegt, ausgebremst. Der Demokratische Frauenbund Deutschlands und seine Gründerinnen (1945–1949). Frankfurt am Main/New York (Campus) 2022 (Dissertation, Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Christiane Kuller, Prof. Dr. Cäcilia "Cillie" Rentmeister|) Grit Bühler: (Die) Mütter der Gleichberechtigung in der DDR. Die frauenbewegte Gründerinnenzeit des Demokratischen Frauenbundes Deutschlands (DFD) 1945 – 1949, in: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung/bpb, Deutschland Archiv, 7.11.2023, https://www.bpb.de/themen/deutschlandarchiv/542468/die-muetter-der-gleichberechtigung-in-der-ddr/ Kurzbiografie von/short biography of Maria Rentmeister, online bei der bpb (Autorin: Grit Bühler): "Aus den Lebensläufen der frühen Akteurinnen im Demokratischen Frauenbund Deutschlands", 07.11.2023 Cäcilia Rentmeister (Nichte von Maria Rentmeister), das Kapitel auf ihrer Website: „Maria Rentmeister: Widerstandskämpferin gegen den Nationalsozialismus, Frauen- und Kulturpolitikerin - Vom Katholizismus zum Sozialismus, vom Rheinland in die DDR.“ https://www.cillie-rentmeister.de/themen/maria-rentmeister-vom-rheinland-in-die-ddr/ Perincioli, Cristina; Rentmeister, Cäcilia: "1974 – Across the Berlin Wall. Women in Two Different Systems", Berlin (West) 1974. Manuskript für Vortrag und Publikation in USA. Auszugsweise auf deutsch im Buchkapitel: 1974 – Ein Blick über die Mauer. Maria Rentmeister im Gespräch, in: Perincioli, Cristina: 1968 – Die bessere Hälfte. Aufbruch der Frauen in Berlin 1968-1974, Berlin (Querverlag) 2015. Auszug der Originalversion auf Englisch/excerpt from the original English version: Beatrice Vierneisel: „Zum Beispiel Maria R.“ im Aufsatz: „Das Erinnerungsarchiv. Lebenszeugnisse als Quellengruppe im Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus beim ZK der SED“, in: Martin Sabrow (Hg.): Verwaltete Vergangenheit. Geschichtskultur und Herrschaftslegitimation in der DDR. Leipzig 1997 (Geschichtswissenschaft und Geschichtskultur im 20. Jahrhundert, Bd. 1) http://www.beatricevierneisel.de/namen
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. In political terms it was Katharina Rentmeister (1881-1952), the mother of the six Rentmeister children, who was probably the more important influence. She is also identified in sources by her soubriquet, "die rote Käthe" ("Red Kathy"). Right from the outbreak of the First World War she opposed it, a political standpoint which the political left in Germany shared with increasing passion as the war inflicted ever more carnage on the fighting men and ever greater destitution on those they had left at home.cf. Prof. Dr. Cäcilia Rentmeister: "Katharina Rentmeister, die "Rote Käthe", 9.6.1881 Neuwied am Rhein – 2.11.1952 Berlin (The author is a niece of Maria Rentmeister.) access date: Jan.20th, 2024
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. (The author is a niece of Maria Rentmeister.)
Käthe Rentmeister's six children could not avoid the effects growing up in an atmosphere of heightened political awareness. Maria's younger brother also left a significant footprint on history as an anti-Nazi activist.
Politics After successful conclusion of her school career, Rentmeister underwent a commercial training. She joined the (""/ SAJ) in 1927. In 1929 she emigrated to the United States where, according to at least one widely requoted source, she remained for three years and worked as a "labourer" ("). Elsewhere there are indications that her employment as a young woman may have been more clerical or secretarial than manual. 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. By the end of 1932 was heading up the women's section in the party's district leadership team ("Unterbezirksleitung") for Oberhausen, and was also a Communist town councillor.
Nazi years The Nazis took power in January 1933 and lost no time in transforming the country into a one-party dictatorship. That made political activism on behalf of non-Nazi political parties illegal, and after the Reichstag fire it became obvious that political activism on behalf of the Communist Party was viewed with particularly savage disfavour by government agencies. Maria Rentmeister pursued her now illegal political activism for the Communist Party, but she did so in the Saarland (region) which for reasons of history and politics would not come under full German control till early 1935. In the Saarland she established a reputation with party comrades as a trainer and administrator. By 1935 the leadership of the German Communist Party had been arrested (or worse), or else had fled abroad. Two cities, in particular, were rapidly becoming the de facto head quarter locations for the German Communist Party in exile: Paris and Moscow. It was to Paris that Rentmeister fled during the Autumn/Fall of 1934. There she worked during 1934/35 for the ambitiously named "World Committee against War and Fascism" ("Weltkomitee gegen Krieg und Faschismus"). 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.
Wilhelm Beuttel One senior activist comrade who escaped to Paris during the Autumn/Fall of 1935 was Wilhelm Beuttel, who took on a position of responsibility for political "education" within the exiled party leadership. Rentmeister and Beuttel teamed up and became partners. One source indicates that the two political exiles married at some stage, 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". At the same time she worked with others 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. There are also references to her having been involved in Amsterdam with the "Red Aid" international workers' welfare organisation.
In 1937 the party sent her to Switzerland where she worked for the German Party leadership's "southern division"("KPD-Abschnittsleitung Süd"). Her work, as before, involved political "education". One source also mentions collaboration with exiled German SPD activists, although this would at this time still have run counter to the policy of the powerfully influential Soviet Party Leadership over in Moscow. Wilhelm Beuttel was smuggled from Amsterdam to Zürich at the same time as Rentmeister. At the end of 1937 he was sent back to Amsterdam, however. In or before early 1938 Rentmeister was also sent back to Amsterdam by the party. From Amsterdam Rentmeister now took on responsibility for co-ordinating "Communist women's resistance" ("kommunistischen Frauenwiderstand") in western Germany.
Prison The Netherlands had avoided full military involvement in the First World War, and Chancellor Hitler's guarantee of Dutch neutrality in November 1939 encouraged the already widespread belief that in this respect history might be about to repeat itself. 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. In 1941 the regional high court of Hamm convicted her on the usual charge of "preparing to commit high treason" ("Vorbereitung zum Hochverrat"). She was imprisoned till 1945 in the Anrath prison on the edge of Krefeld.
After the war War ended, formally, in May 1945 and Rentmeister was released. Her prison and her home region were now under military administration as part of the British occupation zone. Rentmeister, along with most of her relatives, relocated to the large central portion of Germany which was being administered as the Soviet occupation zone, and would be relaunched in October 1949 as the Soviet sponsored German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Communist Party membership was no longer illegal, and she took a lead in re-establishing a party branch in Dessau, where work was starting on rebuilding the destroyed town, between May and July 1945. She was soon able to move to Berlin, less than 100 km to the northeast, where during the Summer of 1945 she worked for the party on culture related matters. From 1945 till its dissolution in November 1947 she also served as chair of the Berlin party Women's Committee. A new political party was formed under contentious circumstances in April 1946 as a result of which Rentmeister was one of many thousand committed communists who signed their party memberships across to the new Socialist Unity Party ("Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands" / SED), which over the next few years would go on to become the ruling party in a different kind of German one-party dictatorship.