Liane Berkowitz

Liane Berkowitz

Liane Berkowitz (7 August 1923 – 5 August 1943) was a German resistance fighter of the Red Orchestra organisation. Arrested and sentenced to death, she was executed shortly after she gave birth to a daughter in custody.

Life

Liane Berkowitz was born in Berlin, the daughter of conductor Victor Vasilyev and his wife, the singing teacher Catherine Jewsienko. Shortly before her birth, her parents had fled from the Soviet Union. When Liane's father died, her mother Catherine secondly married Henry Berkowitz, who immediately adopted Liane in 1930. The family lived on Viktoria-Luise-Platz in the Schöneberg district.

Liane was fluent in German and Russian; Henry arranged for her education at the private Heilsche Abendschule gymnasium where she prepared for her Abitur degree from 1941. There, she joined a circle of friends which coalesced around her schoolmate Eva Rittmeister and the latter's husband, the neurologist John Rittmeister. Ursula Goetzel, Otto Gollnow, Fritz Thiel, and Friedrich Rehmer also belonged to the group. Under the guidance of John Rittmeister, the friends became a circle of Hitler's opponents, who later worked against the Nazi regime together with the left-leaning Red Orchestra resistance movement around the Luftwaffe officer Harro Schulze-Boysen. Liane became engaged to Friedrich Rehmer and was pregnant when she was arrested.

Together with Otto Gollnow, while her fiancé was severely wounded in the hospital, Berkowitz pasted about 100 posters saying 'Permanent Exhibition - The Nazi Paradise - War - Hunger - Lie - Gestapo - How long?" on the evening of 17 May 1942 in the busy area between Kurfürstendamm and Uhlandstrasse. This was intended as a protest against the The Soviet Paradise exhibition organised by the Nazi Party Propaganda Office, currently taking place at the Berlin Lustgarten. They also wanted to show that anti-fascist resistance in Germany was still active. It is not certain whether during this action Berkowitz and Gollnow were discreetly accompanied and protected by Harro Schulze-Boysen.

In the context of breaking the Red Orchestra group, Liane Berkowitz was arrested and charged on 26 September 1942. Friedrich Rehmer was still in a Wehrmacht hospital in Britz, where he tried to recuperate from a serious war injury he had suffered on the Eastern Front. He was arrested in his hospital ward on 29 November. On 18 January 1943 the Second Senate of the Reichskriegsgericht court-martial convicted Berkowitz and Rehmer together with other friends involved in the adhesive label action "for aiding the preparation of high treason and aiding the enemy," and sentenced them to death.

Liane's and Friedrich's daughter Irina was born on 12 April 1943 in the women's prison on Barnimstraße. The grandmother took care of the child from July 1943. As the Reichskriegsgericht pronounced the sentence recommendation when checking against Adolf Hitler to dismiss the pregnant Liane Berkowitz from prison, he expressly rejected any reprieve. The death sentence was confirmed by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and countersigned.

The young mother was executed in Plötzensee Prison on 5 August 1943, two days before her 19th birthday. Friedrich Rehmer had already been executed as early as on 13 May 1943. After death her body was released to anatomist Hermann Stieve to be dissected for research. Her final resting place is unknown. Her daughter Irina died on 16 October 1943 in hospital in Eberswalde under unclear circumstances.

Liane Berkowitz was a member of the Russian Orthodox Church. Her letters from death row are marked by a deep faith. The Catholic prison chaplain Peter Buchholz enabled her to receive the Holy Communion on the day of her death.

Honours

Memorial plaque in Berlin-Schöneberg, Viktoria-Luise-Platz 1

Literature

External links

References

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