398:. This meant that from now on Groh-Kummerlöw's position within the FDGB would form the basis for a 25-year career in national politics. In February 1946, in addition to her existing duties, she became a member of the FDGB National Executive, a membership which she retained till 1963. She was particularly active in the Women's Committee of the National Executive Committee, promoting increased inclusion of women both in the country's paid work force and in trades union organisations.
440:, the SED was in place, ready to become the new country's ruling political party, while the systematic removal from positions of party influence of former SPD members meant that in respect of party structure and policies it resembled the old pro-Soviet Communist Party with a new name. 1949 was also the year in which, in May, Grete Groh-Kummerlöw relocated from Saxony to Berlin. She took a position as head of the Social Policy Department on the National Executive of the
555:. For the 1949 legislative period the FDGB's had a quota of 30 seats in the 330 seat Volkskammer. Grete Groh-Kummerlöw occupied one of the FDGB seats. Both the FDGB quota and the total number of seats would increase during the next 25 years, but Groh-Kummerlöw continued to represent the FDGB in the chamber until 1971. Within the FDGB group, she played a leading role and, in respect of the overall assembly, she also served as a member of the
241:. Nevertheless, the vote shares still entitled the Communists to 13 seats in the new Landtag (regional legislative assembly) and Grete Groh's name was high enough up the party list to for her to win one of those seats. She was at this stage the youngest member not merely in the Saxony Landtag, but in any of the regional legislative assemblies across Germany.
502:. She was also a member of the Party Presidium in the regional assembly. However, she resigned in December 1949 from the Saxony assembly, responding to the call of national politics. She had already relocated to Berlin seven months earlier. By this time she had also already found time for a period of study at the regional party academy in
244:
One source states that Groh was a textile worker from 1925 till 1932 while other, possibly more left-wing sources, state that she was a textile worker from 1932 till 1945. Either way, it appears from the sources that after 1931 her party and political work took up more of her time and energy.
447:
The FDGB was closely integrated into the country's power structure, and after the 3rd FDGB Congress, which took place in 1950, Groh-Kummerlöw became responsible for the organisation's Worker Supply
Department. The issue of worker supply was important nationally in the context of a desperate
385:, taking on responsibility for training communist cells and extending trades union influence in the factories. In January 1946, as a member of the executive of the regional executive of the important Textile Workers' Union, she was mandated to take on the chair of the Third
471:
responsibility for Social
Security matters. In 1957 Groh-Kummerlöw switched, becoming Secretary of the Central Committee for Industrial Unions in the local economy, before further promotion in 1958 which was when she became Secretary of the FDGB group in the national
280:
government. Political party membership or work - other than for the Nazi Party - was banned. Grete Groh nevertheless continued with her party work. She was probably briefly detained by the authorities in
February 1933. Then, on 28 June 1933 she was arrested at
521:
not because all the other political parties had been banned, but because a structure had been constructed that enabled SED party to specify the other parties' (fixed) quotas of seats and, increasingly, to control what they did. In addition to these so-called
293:, and was in the event released in November 1935. She was then placed under police surveillance. On leaving prison she was initially unemployed, but later found farm work. Towards the end of 1936 she returned to work in the Plauen textile industry.
324:, there was a rash of political arrests which included 280 members of the Safkow resistance group. On 10 August 1944 Grete Groh-Kummerlöw was again arrested, again facing a charge of "Conspiracy to commit High Treason". She was sent to
296:
In 1937 she married
Heinrich Kummerlöw. Their son Fritz was born in 1940, after which the focus of her work was on her family for the next three years. However, after 1943 she again became closely connected with the (still illegal)
389:
Executive for Saxony. Although individual trades unions continued to exist in the Soviet occupation zone, the highly centralised power structure being developed for the zone meant that union power was heavily centralised in the
562:
In 1967 Grete Groh-Kummerlöw, now aged 58, resigned from her various political and trades union functions on health grounds. An exception was the People's
Chamber where she continued to represent the FDGB and to be listed as a
186:
which had fueled Plauen's rapid growth during the previous century. Grete was the seventh of her parents' nine recorded children. From an early age she supported the family by helping her mother with the housework.
336:
for more than four years, and military defeat would follow in May 1945. In the chaos of the period, Groh-Kummerlöw's planned trial never took place: on 27 April 1945 she was released from prison by the advancing
495:
414:
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which, especially in the early 1950s, were not always quite as firmly under the control of the SED power structure as they later became. One of the Mass
Organisations represented in the Volkskammer was the
460:. For the Trades Union organisation improvements in social policy were central to the Worker Supply Department. In 1952 the departments at the FDGB were reconfigured and she also took over from
858:
878:
803:
843:
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Grete Groh-Kummerlöw took part in the KPD/SPD Party
Congresses that voted through the merger of the parties in April 1946, and became a member of the reconstituted
853:
863:
848:
429:. Grete Groh-Kummerlöw was one of many thousands of Communist Party members who lost little time in signing their party membership across to the new
838:
374:
538:. The presence of mass movements in the legislature was intended to indicate a broadening of popular support for the legislative programme of the
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201:, which stood out among the major trades unions of the times on account of the high proportion of women in its membership. She joined the
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The move to Berlin marked the start of her time as a member of the "People's
Council", which a few months after she joined it became the
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member in the regional legislative assembly of Saxony in 1930, thereby becoming the youngest legislative assembly member in
Germany.
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also received quotas of seats in the
Volkskammer. East Germany's constitutional arrangements closely followed those of the
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list. Despite increasing their share of the vote the Communists still came in only a close third in Saxony, behind the
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597:
444:. From now on her union and political career would become a national one. In 1950 her marriage ended in divorce.
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and placed in "protective custody". Almost a year later, on 8 June 1934, she was convicted at the high court in
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of "Conspiracy to commit High Treason" and sentenced to twenty months in prison. She spent her sentence at the
245:
1931 was the year in which she became an organising director and instructor for the regional leaderships of the
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182:, a small town in western Saxony where the local economy boomed and slumped according to the state of the
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which the government had created specially for political trials. However, by now Germany had been at
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area and immediately resumed her trades union activities. She worked as a secretary for the Plauen
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50:
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Aged 15 she left school and took a job in a textiles factory. The next year she joined the
449:
342:
333:
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and the continuing haemorrhage of working age citizens across the still relatively porous
718:"Groh-Kummerlöw Margarete Gertrud (Grete): KPD/SED-Politikerin, Gewerkschaftsfunktionärin"
610:
407:
274:
266:
672:(in German). Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur: Biographische Datenbanken
209:, possibly in connection with her political activities, but soon returned to her native
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in 1927, participating in administrative and leadership work. She briefly relocated to
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she engaged in political resistance, spending much of the period in state detention.
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433:. By the time the occupation zone was re-founded, in October 1949, as the
670:"Groh-Kummerlöw, Grete geb. Groh * 6.2.1909, † 16.2.1980 FDGB-Funktionärin"
361:, where she had been liberated by Soviet soldiers, found themselves in the
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from 1950 till 1971 and as of its deputy presidents from 1950 till 1963.
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720:. Institut für Sächsische Geschichte und Volkskunde e.V, Dresden
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shortage of workers, following the large-scale slaughter of the
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on 9 February 1945 where she was scheduled to face trial in the
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132:(6 February 1909 – 16 February 1980) was a German politician.
716:
Vogel, Lutz (22 December 2004). Schattkowsky, Martina (ed.).
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for the Soviet commander as the occupiers established an
213:. On reaching the age of 21 lost no time in joining the
369:. Grete Groh-Kummerlöw's first job involved working in
157:
she served for many years as a deputy president in the
754:. Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e.V., Berlin
406:In April 1946 the way was prepared for a return to
178:Grete Groh was born into a working-class family in
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61:
28:
21:
859:Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit in gold
517:. The legislature was controlled by the ruling
879:People convicted of treason against Nazi Germany
748:"Groh-Kummerlöw, Grete (*6.2.1909 - †16.2.1980)"
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353:At the end of the war both her home region of
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804:Socialist Unity Party of Germany politicians
225:1930 was a year of regional elections. In
844:Free German Trade Union Federation members
18:
377:, but in August 1945 she returned to the
494:, where she was one of 59 members (in a
634:
481:Landtag (regional legislative assembly)
809:Members of the Provisional Volkskammer
799:Communist Party of Germany politicians
794:Politicians from the Kingdom of Saxony
192:German Textiles Workers' Trades Union
314:resistance group around Anton Saefkow
7:
161:where she represented the country's
869:Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein Organization
854:Communists in the German Resistance
551:Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund
542:, and it diluted the presence of
425:and the more moderately left-wing
394:Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund
14:
864:Recipients of the Banner of Labor
849:Female members of the Volkskammer
557:Presidium of the People's Chamber
265:Regime change came to Germany in
159:Presidium of the People's Chamber
839:Members of the Landtag of Saxony
515:/ National Legislative Assembly)
312:she came into contact with the
261:Regime change, marriage and war
229:Grete Groh was included on the
834:Members of the 5th Volkskammer
829:Members of the 4th Volkskammer
824:Members of the 3rd Volkskammer
819:Members of the 2nd Volkskammer
814:Members of the 1st Volkskammer
549:Trades Union Congress (FDGB /
392:Trades Union Congress (FDGB /
343:fighting for control of nearby
33:Margarete Gertrud "Grete" Groh
1:
427:Social Democratic Party (SPD)
273:lost little time in imposing
155:second one-party dictatorship
16:German politician (1909–1980)
874:German women trade unionists
534:, which had been devised by
442:Trades Union Congress (FDGB)
365:of what had previously been
500:Socialist Unity Party (SED)
431:Socialist Unity Party (SED)
895:
438:German Democratic Republic
402:German Democratic Republic
73:Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz)
617:Patriotic Order of Merit
591:Patriotic Order of Merit
584:Patriotic Order of Merit
375:administration structure
320:of 20 July 1944 against
544:other political parties
498:) representing the new
341:, by this time already
316:. In the wake of the
163:Trades Union Federation
363:Soviet occupation zone
349:Soviet occupation zone
77:Bezirk Karl-Marx-Stadt
662:Helmut Müller-Enbergs
423:Communist Party (KPD)
387:Trades Union Congress
130:Grete Groh-Kummerlöw
23:Grete Groh-Kummerlöw
526:, certain approved
291:Waldheim super-jail
789:People from Plauen
624:Order of Karl Marx
578:Clara Zetkin Medal
571:Awards and honours
567:member till 1971.
528:Mass Organisations
511:People's Chamber (
415:contentious merger
411:party dictatorship
318:assassination plot
139:she was elected a
115:Heinrich Kummerlöw
496:120 seat assembly
184:textiles industry
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383:Party Leadership
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756:. Retrieved
752:FDGB-Lexikon
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722:. Retrieved
674:. Retrieved
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540:ruling party
532:Soviet Union
524:Bloc parties
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508:
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458:West Germany
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301:. Through
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267:January 1933
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81:East Germany
67:(1980-02-16)
784:1980 deaths
779:1909 births
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519:SED (party)
513:Volkskammer
484: [
465: [
462:Adolf Deter
419:Soviet zone
306: [
195: [
174:Early years
135:During the
773:Categories
746:) (2009).
630:References
322:The Leader
283:Bitterfeld
92:Politician
88:Occupation
39:1909-02-06
593:in Silver
586:in Bronze
565:Presidium
504:Ottendorf
421:, of the
417:, in the
413:with the
345:Berlin.
339:Red army
269:and the
249:in both
237:and the
221:Politics
146:For the
120:Children
758:10 June
724:10 June
676:10 June
619:in Gold
371:Potsdam
367:Germany
359:Potsdam
326:Potsdam
287:Dresden
255:Leipzig
251:Dresden
492:Saxony
454:border
379:Plauen
355:Saxony
227:Saxony
211:Saxony
207:Berlin
180:Plauen
112:Spouse
47:Plauen
742:AH (?
622:1979
615:1975
609:1965
605:]
596:1959
589:1959
582:1955
576:1954
536:Lenin
488:]
469:]
310:]
278:party
239:NSDAP
199:]
760:2015
726:2015
678:2015
490:for
408:one-
357:and
275:one-
253:and
169:Life
62:Died
29:Born
456:to
450:war
334:war
235:SPD
106:SED
102:KPD
775::
750:.
734:^
686:^
668:.
664:;
637:^
603:de
506:.
486:de
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79:,
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37:(
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