Ilse Stöbe

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Ilse Stöbe

Ilse Frieda Gertrud Stöbe (17 May 1911 – 22 December 1942) was a German left-wing journalist and anti-Nazi resistance fighter. She was born and died in Berlin.[1][2]

Life[edit]

Ilse Stöbe grew up in a working-class home in Berlin. Stöbe was the only daughter of carpenter Max Stöbe and his wife Frieda née Schumann. She had an eight-year-older half-brother from her mother's first marriage, Kurt Müller.[3] The family spent their first year at Mainzer Straße 1 in Lichtenberg, Berlin,[4] before the couple moved to Jungstrasse 14 in Berlin.[3] Both her parents were communist sympathisers but didn't join the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Her half-brother was radicalised in the area they lived that was blighted by poverty and unemployment. It led him to became an active KPD member, taking part in bloody battles between the KPD and the SPD.[3]

There is little information about their youth.[5] However, it is likely she attended the local secondary school located about 3 minutes from her house, before receiving a recommendation to move to grammar school, attending School at the Rathaus [de].[6] At Rathaus, she met her life long friend, later publisher and author Helmut Kindler [de].[6] In 1927, her parents had separated and as a single parent her mother couldn't afford the fees, forcing her to leave in 1927. Her father was no longer mentioned in her letters to mother, whom she was close to.[6] Stöbe then attended a trade school to learn a profession as a shorthand typist.[6]

Career[edit]

In April 1929, Stöbe began working in the marketing department of the publishing house of the democrat and liberal Rudolf Mosse and then worked as secretary to the journalist, writer Theodor Wolff who is editor-in-chief of the Berliner Tageblatt.[7] Wolff stongly admired Stöbe and would write a novel "Die Schwimmerin. Ein Roman aus der Gegenwart" (The Swimmer. A novel from the present) that explore's the relationship between bank director Ulrich Faber and his secretary Gerda Rohr.[8] The literary figure of Rohr is based on Stöbe.[9][10] The novel can best be described as a mood inspired by admiration rather than a description of any concrete events.[11] Wolff's homage to Stöbe and his own reputation guarantees Stöbe's anti-Nazi, proletarian and humanist stance.[11]

At the "Berliner Tageblatt" she met the Jewish editor and communist[12] Rudolf Herrnstadt, eight years her senior and became good friends with him.[13] The couple eventually became engaged.[14] Herrnstadt believed that the political ideology of capitalism with its inherent structural problems in the 1920's would be replaced by socialism, or indeed communism.[15] From the beginning, Stöbe shared the same political ideology as Herrnstadt. There was an expectation that both of them would join the KPD and several sources state that Stöbe joined the KPD in 1929.[1][16] However, a study by the German historian Elke Scherstjanoi found that they were told by a KPD official in the Karl Liebknecht house, that they were more useful to the communist party, working outside the KPD.[17][a] In 1930, when Herrnstadt was a correspondent for the Berliner Tageblatt in Prague, he repeatedly tried to join the communist party.[19] His persistance brought him to the notice of Soviet military intelligence, who recruited him as an Red Army GRU agent[19] and gave him the codename "Arbin".[20]

Resistance[edit]

Memorial plaque, Frankfurter Allee 233, in Lichtenberg, Berlin

When Herrnstadt returned to Berlin in 1931, he introduced Stöbe to "Dr. Bosch", who in reality was the Soviet rezident in Berlin, the Latvian Jewish communist and historian Yakov Bronin [ru] (1904-1984).[21] Bronin recruited Stöbe as an agent for the GRU and gradually introduced her to intelligence work. Her codename was "Arnim".[b][20] From 1931, she worked with Herrnstadt, who built up an intelligence group of the Am Apparat (Military section) of the Communist International, which in addition to him and Stöbe, Gerhard Kegel [de] and his wife Charlotte Vogt, Marta (Margarita) and Kurt Welkisch, at times also the publisher Helmut Kindler [de] and the lawyer Lothar Bolz all belonged.[23] The type and nature of information that Stöbe collected is not clear but consisted of reports of discussions with Wolff and editorial reports, that were delivered weekly.[23] Being part of an espionage organisation meant clerking duties for Stöbe, photographing documents, but also involved working in operational tasks like maintainting contact with agents and communist in Berlin.[23]

In early 1933, Stöbe lost her job when Wolff, who was told his name was on the SA death list, fled Germany.[17] In March 1933, her brother was severly beaten by the SA.[24] In a search for a job while maintaining her secret work, Stöbe was appointed as a journalist to the Breslau based Breslauer Neueste Nachrichten [de] newspaper.[24]

Together with Herrnstadt in 1934, they moved to Warsaw, where she worked as a foreign correspondent for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung until September 1939 and also wrote for other Swiss newspapers. Stöbe was then a member of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) and in mid-1934 was appointed Cultural Attaché of the Nazi party's foreign office in Poland.[citation needed]

In 1939, after the Invasion of Poland, the Warsaw headquarters run by Herrnstadt was dissolved. Herrnstadt fled to Moscow and Stöbe returned to work in Berlin.[25]

According to Helmut Kindler, she remained in contact with him as her childhood friend.[26] During the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Stöbe met the Swiss publisher Rudolf Huber, who left her a major part of his fortune in his will when he died in 1940.[27]

Shortly before the German invasion of Poland, she returned to Berlin from Warsaw and worked in the information department of the Foreign Office. There she met the journalist Carl Helfrich, with whom she lived until her arrest in 1942. According to her will, he was the tenant of her flat in Ahornallee 48 in Charlottenburg, Berlin.[28]


Initially, from 1930, Stöbe was a member of the reconnaissance group of Rudolf Herrnstadt, where he was listed under the name of Friedrich Brockmann, and from that time began to volunteer for Soviet intelligence under the pseudonym Arbin.

Gerhard Kegel, who was an employee of the Foreign Office in Berlin from 1935 to 1943, supported Stöbe in her clandestine intelligence activities after returning from Poland.[29] She allegedly continued this activity until her arrest in 1942.[30]

Arrest[edit]

Stolperstein

Stöbe was arrested on 12 September 1942 by the Gestapo, allegedly for spying for the Soviet Union and for membership of the Red Orchestra (Die Rote Kapelle). A Gestapo report of November 1942, stated a radio message from the Soviet Union informed that a parachuted resistance fighter would come to her address. After seven weeks of torture she was compelled to confess to conspiratorial connections to the Soviet secret service and to people such as Rudolf von Scheliha.[31] He was arrested on 12 October 1942. Both were sentenced to death for treason on 14 December 1942 by the Reichskriegsgericht, and executed on 22 December 1942 in the Plötzensee Prison in Berlin, she by guillotine and he by hanging from a meathook. The Soviet agent, Heinrich Koenen, who had landed in Germany by parachute, was arrested at her house by a waiting Gestapo official. Her mother was also arrested and sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she died in 1943.[32] Stöbe's brother Kurt Müller was able to escape arrest and continue his resistance activities with the resistance group, the European Union Resistance. He was murdered in June 1944.[33]

Awards and honours[edit]

She was the only woman to be featured on a special coin issued by the East German Ministry of State (Stasi) to commemorate important spies in Communist service during the war. The Ilse Stöbe Vocational School in Market Street, Berlin is named in her honour.[34]

In October 2013, the Federal Foreign Office began considering whether Stöbe should be on the honorary staff list of those who resisted Nazism.[35] In July, 2014, Germany's Foreign Ministry honoured Stöbe for her actions against the Nazis.[36]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Herrnstadt joined the KPD in 1 July 1931 with membership number 521173 under the code name Friedrich Brockmann.[18]
  2. ^ Stöbe was registered with Soviet intelligence in December 1932 with a codename of "F".[22]

Citations[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Adams 2009, p. 2009.
  2. ^ "Ilse Stöbe". Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand (in German). German Resistance Memorial Center. Retrieved 23 February 2018.
  3. ^ a b c Coppi & Kebir 2013, p. 18.
  4. ^ Müller-Enbergs 1991a, p. 32.
  5. ^ Coppi, Danyel & Tuchel 1994, p. 263.
  6. ^ a b c d Coppi & Kebir 2013, p. 19.
  7. ^ Coppi & Kebir 2013, pp. 20–21.
  8. ^ Coppi & Kebir 2013, p. 21.
  9. ^ Wolff, Theodor (1937). Die Schwimmerin. Ein Roman aus der Gegenwart [The swimmer. A novel from the present]. Zürich.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  10. ^ Coppi & Kebir 2013, p. 14.
  11. ^ a b Scherstjanoi 2014, p. 143.
  12. ^ Coppi & Kebir 2013, p. 24-25.
  13. ^ Coppi & Kebir 2013, p. 27.
  14. ^ Coppi, Danyel & Tuchel 1994, pp. 262–264.
  15. ^ Coppi & Kebir 2013, p. 24.
  16. ^ Müller-Enbergs 1991a, p. 31.
  17. ^ a b Scherstjanoi 2014, p. 14.
  18. ^ Coppi & Kebir 2013, p. 25.
  19. ^ a b Scherstjanoi 2013, p. 148.
  20. ^ a b Coppi & Kebir 2013, p. 29.
  21. ^ Müller-Enbergs 1991b.
  22. ^ Scherstjanoi 2014, p. 15.
  23. ^ a b c Scherstjanoi 2013, p. 24.
  24. ^ a b Coppi & Kebir 2013, p. 31.
  25. ^ Kindler 1992, p. 147.
  26. ^ Helmut Kindler (20 October 2017). Zum Abschied ein Fest: Die Autobiographie eines deutschen Verlegers (in German). Rowohlt Repertoire. ISBN 978-3-688-10642-4. Retrieved 21 April 2019.
  27. ^ Coppi, Danyel & Tuchel 1994, pp. 262–276.
  28. ^ Coppi, Danyel & Tuchel 1994, pp. 263–271.
  29. ^ Gerhard, Kegel (1984). In den Stürmen unseres Jahrhunderts : ein deutscher Kommunist über sein ungewöhnliches Leben [In the storms of the century: a German Communist about his unusual life] (3rd ed.). Berlin: Dietz Verlag. ISBN 3-320-00609-6.
  30. ^ Müller-Enbergs 1991a, pp. 264, 274, footnote 20.
  31. ^ Kesaris 1979, p. 151.
  32. ^ Woermann 1991, p. 133.
  33. ^ Coppi, Danyel & Tuchel 1994, p. 265.
  34. ^ Müller-Enbergs 1991a, p. 70.
  35. ^ Wiegrefe, Klaus (1 October 2013). "German Ministry Ponders Honoring Soviet Spy". Hamburg: Spiegel-Verlag. Spiegel International. Retrieved 27 May 2024.
  36. ^ "Anti-Hitler plot officers honoured". Independent News & Media. Belfast Telegraph. 20 July 2014. Retrieved 27 May 2024.

Bibliography[edit]

Further reading[edit]

Witnesses[edit]

  • Gerhard, Kegel (1984). In den Stürmen unseres Jahrhunderts : ein deutscher Kommunist über sein ungewöhnliches Leben [In the storms of the century: a German Communist about his unusual life] (3rd ed.). Berlin: Dietz Verlag. ISBN 3-320-00609-6.

Biographical-historical[edit]

    • Ilse Stöbe: Wieder im Amt : eine Widerstandskämpferin in der Wilhelmstraße [Ilse Stöbe: Back in office: a resistance fighter in Wilhelmstraße - 2nd extended edition with a preface by Gregor Gysi and an appreciation by Frank-Walter Steinmeier on the occasion of the inclusion of Ilse Stöbe on the panel of honor in the Foreign Office] (2nd supplemented and updated ed.). Hamburg: VSA: Verlag. 2015. ISBN 978-3-89965-660-2.
  • Liebmann, Irina (2008). Wäre es schön? Es wäre schön! : mein Vater Rudolf Herrnstadt. Berlin: Berlin Verlag. ISBN 978-3-8270-0589-2.
  • Brüning, Elfriede (2010). Gefährtinnen : Porträts vergessener Frauen [Companions: portraits of forgotten women] (in German) (2nd ed.). Berlin: Dietz-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-320-02242-6.
  • Brüning, Elfriede (18 May 1986). "Kundschafterin für die Sowjetunion. Zum 75. Geburtstag der Kommunistin Ilse Stöbe" [Scout for the Soviet Union. On the occasion of the 75th birthday of Communist Ilse Stöbe] (in German). Berliner Verlag. Berliner Zeitung.
  • Zimmermann, Kurt (1980). The Big Unknown. Berlin: Militärverlag der DDR.
  • Luise Kraushaar and others: Deutsche Widerstandskämpfer 1933–1945. Biografien und Briefe. [German Resistance fighters 1933-1945. Biographies and letters.] edition. vom Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus beim Zentralkomitee der SED; Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 1970, Volume 1, pp. 657ff; Volume 2, pp. 561f

Historical environment[edit]

  • Kraushaar, Luise (1981). Berliner Kommunisten im Kampf gegen den Faschismus, 1936 bis 1942. Robert Uhrig u. Genossen [Berlin communists in the fight against fascism, 1936 to 1942.] (in German). Berlin: Dietz. OCLC 164623936.
  • Rosiejka, Gert (1986). Die Rote Kapelle : "Landesverrat" als antifaschist. Widerstand [Die Rote Kapelle : "Landesverrat" als antifaschist. Widerstand] (in German) (1st ed.). Hamburg: Ergebnisse-Verlag. ISBN 3-925622-16-0.
  • Lota, Wladimir (2004). Al ta protiv Barbarossy Sluzhba vneshnej razvedki ["Alta" against "Barbarossa"] (in Russian). Molodaya gvardiya. ISBN 5235027264.
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