Annemarie Oestreicher (born Annemarie Hinze: 14 December 1875 – 1945) was a German politician. She died following her internment, aged 69, in the

Ravensbrück concentration camp Ravensbrück () was a German concentration camp exclusively for women from 1939 to 1945, located in northern Germany, north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel). The camp memorial's estimated figure o ...

although the precise circumstances of her death remain unknown.

Life

Annemarie Hinze was born in Berlin. Her father was a businessman. She trained for clerical work and then, till 1910, worked as an assistant nurse and as a freelance "dentist". Her first husband was a commercial director with Siemens-Schuckert. She came to politics, and membership of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) thanks to her second husband who became editor in chief of the "Königsberger Volkszeitung" (''" Königsberg People's Newspaper"''). By 1921 she was describing herself not as a nurse or a dentist but as a "housewife". During the early 1920s she also worked as an author. She was elected a member of the Prussian parliament (''"Landtag"'') in 1921, representing an electoral district in

East Prussia East Prussia ; german: Ostpreißen, label=Low Prussian; pl, Prusy Wschodnie; lt, Rytų Prūsija was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 187 ...

and dividing her time between Berlin and Königsberg. By this time she was a widow. Her political focus was on health, the arts, agriculture and questions involving farm workers. She also served as a member of the Prussian Regional Health Council. She continued to sit as a member of the Landtag till 1932, after which she settled in Osterode, to the south of Königsberg.Annemarie Oestreicher. In: Franz Osterroth: Biographisches Lexikon des Sozialismus. Verstorbene Persönlichkeiten. vol. 1. J. H. W. Dietz Nachf., Hannover 1960, p. 235. After the Nazis came to power she moved back to Berlin. On 20 July 1944 there was a plot to assassinate the leader which came close to success. Government authorities had already prepared a list of former politicians from the Weimar years to be rounded up in the event of intensified domestic opposition. The mass arrest was implemented on the night of 22/23 August 1944. There being no longer significant numbers of former Communist Party politicians at liberty in Germany, roughly 4,000 former officials and members of mainstream centre and left-wing "Bourgeois" parties were detained. Annemarie Oestreicher was one of them. Many of the detainees were released after a few weeks, but others, including Oestreicher, were taken to the

. It was here, under circumstances that have never become clear, that she died, probably early in 1945.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oestreicher, Annemarie Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians Members of the Prussian House of Representatives People who died in Ravensbrück concentration camp Politicians from Berlin 1875 births 1945 deaths