Paula Rueß (born Paula Kopp: 3 May 1902 - 8 August 1980) was a German political activist (

KPD The Communist Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, , KPD ) was a major political party in the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West German ...

). Forced into exile by the

Nazi takeover Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the '' Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP; German Workers' Party). He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Be ...

, during the early 1940s she worked with the

French Resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

Life

Paula Kopp was born in Lichtensteig, a small town in the

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internation ...

Canton of St. Gallen, a short distance from the three-way frontier with

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

and

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. At the age of 21 she was already a member of the

Communist Party of Germany The Communist Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, , KPD ) was a major political party in the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West German ...

. From 1928 she was working at

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

in the secretariat at the international office of the Young Communists. From here she moved on to a job as a typist in the press department of the

party A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature f ...

central committee's own secretariat. She married Hermann Nuding in 1923 or 1925. The

in January 1933 was quickly followed by the switch to a

one-party state A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system, or single-party system is a type of sovereign state in which only one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other parties ...

, and at the end of February 1933, following the

Reichstag fire The Reichstag fire (german: Reichstagsbrand, ) was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of ...

, Hermann Nuding was among the first of a large batch of German Communists to be arrested and placed in "protective custody". Political work was now illegal and, as a paid official of the Communist Party, Paula Nuding accordingly lost her job and faced state persecution. She escaped via

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France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

where

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

was rapidly becoming an ad hoc headquarters for the German Communist Party in exile. In Paris she worked on distribution for the "illegally" produced German language Communist newspaper "Volk und Vaterland" and for the

Comintern The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet Union, Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to ...

. Following the outbreak of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in the later summer of 1939, France was invaded by the

German army The German Army (, "army") is the land component of the armed forces of Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German ''Bundeswehr'' together with the ''Marine'' (German Navy) and the ''Luftwaf ...

in May/June 1940: the northern part of the country was directly occupied while the south was administered by a collaborationist government. In this context large numbers of exiled German communists in Paris were identified as enemy aliens and arrested in the summer of 1940. Paula Nuding was one of these, and was taken to the internment camp at Rieucros in the south. Under circumstances that remain far from clear she was nevertheless among those who escaped or were released from Rieucros during 1941, and she returned to

. Between November 1941 and November 1943 she worked underground in Paris as a member of the local German Communist leadership, and was involved in illegally contributing to and producing newspapers and leaflets on behalf of the liberation movement (''"Komitee Freies Deutschland für den Westen"''). At the end of November 1943 Paula Nuding was arrested by the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

. She was pregnant at the time, but as a result of physical mistreatment she lost her child. On 13 August 1944 she was taken, as part of the final transport of approximately 800 women, from France to 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 ...

, where she was registered as prisoner number 57,895. The concentration camp was liberated by the

Soviet army uk, Радянська армія , image = File:Communist star with golden border and red rims.svg , alt = , caption = Emblem of the Soviet Army , start_date ...

in April 1945, and Paula Nuding made her way, not without difficulties and hold-ups, to Esslingen am Neckar, a town near

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...

which by the end of the war in May 1945 had ended up not in the

Soviet occupation zone The Soviet Occupation Zone ( or german: Ostzone, label=none, "East Zone"; , ''Sovetskaya okkupatsionnaya zona Germanii'', "Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany") was an area of Germany in Central Europe that was occupied by the Soviet Union as a c ...

but in the US zone. By this time Paula and Hermann Nuding's marriage had ended in divorce. Esslingen was the home town of another former and current Communist activist (1901-1974)) whom she married in 1947. Hans Rueß had spent the Nazi years in Germany, interned in a succession of concentration camps. Paula Rueß had been deprived of her German citizenship during the Nazi years, and she had to struggle with the authorities in what would become

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

for more than a year to recover it. During the postwar period Paula Rueß resumed her political activities and became a trades union secretary. She was one of the founding members of the Democratic Women's League (''"Demokratischer Frauenbund Deutschlands"'' / DFD) and campaigned for restitution on behalf of former concentration camp inmates. She also involved herself in the peace movement and with the Union of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime (''"Vereinigung der Verfolgten des Naziregimes – Bund der Antifaschistinnen und Antifaschisten"'' / VVN-BdA). During the 1950s the

West German West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

Federal Constitutional Court placed a ban on the

, but as cold war tensions eased marginally it proved possible to launch a modified version of it in 1968, and was an early member of the German Communist Party. In the local election of 1975 she was a candidate for the party.

Life

References

Further reading