Bertha Braunthal Bertha Braunthal-Clark | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1 February 1887 |
| Died | Q2 1968 |
| Occupations | activist, journalist and politician |
| Political party | SPÖ USPD KPD CPGB |
| Spouse | Willie Norby Clark |
| Parent(s) | Maier Braunthal (1836-1914) Klara Zoller/Braunthal (1862-1940) |
Bertha Braunthal (1 February 1887 – 1968)[1] was acommunist politician inGermany from the party's creation in 1920 till her emigration toLondon in 1933.[2] She was also afirst-wave feminist.[3]
Sources sometimes identify her as Bertha Braunthal-Clark, reflecting her marriage in or before 1933 to the Scottish born communist Willie Norby Clark.[4]
Braunthal was the eldest of six children born into a Jewish family inVienna. Her father, Maier Braunthal (1836–1914), originally fromOdessa,[5] worked as anaccountant. Two of her younger brothers,Julius Braunthal (1891–1972) andAlfred Braunthal (1897–1980) would also grow up to become notable as pioneers of twentieth centurysocialism.[2]
During theFirst World War she moved to theNetherlands and obtained a clerical job with a manufacturing company (the Netherlands managed to avoid direct involvement in the First World War.) After that, instead of moving back to what remained ofAustria, she took a job inBerlin. Before the war, in Austria, she had been a member of theSocial Democratic Party. In 1917its German equivalent split, primarily over the question of whether or not to continue supporting the government in its determination to continue with the war. Braunthal became a member of the breakawayIndependent Social Democratic Party ("Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands" / USPD). After the war ended, at the Party Conference which took place atLeipzig in December 1919, she was one of six people elected to the secretariat of the USPD Central Committee.[2] During the later war years she may also have been involved with theSpartacus League. She played a part in therevolutionary turbulence thatfollowed the war, working in Berlin as secretary to the propaganda department of theGreater Berlin Executive Council of the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils.[n 1]
Braunthal positioned herself on the left wing of theUSPD. From March 1920 she took a leading role on party propaganda work that focused on women.[6] She worked on the party newspaper,Die Kämpferin[n 2].[4] As further realignment of the political left approached, in October 1920 she attended the "breakup party congress" ("Spaltungsparteitag") inHalle and was elected to the four person Secretariat of the USPD Central Committee. Two months later, at the "unification party congress" in Berlin, the left wing majority of the USPD agreed to unite with the recently createdCommunist Party of Germany. Braunthal was elected to the party executive and took over leadership of its Women's Secretariat, a post she retained till 1923, when she was succeeded in the post byErna Lang.[7][8] During this period she was working alongsideClara Zetkin, Hertha Sturm andMartha Arendsee editing the party newspaper,Die Kommunistin ("The Woman Communist").[9]
Braunthal participated at the Second International Communist Women's Conference in June 1921 before travelling on toMoscow to join in at the World Congress of theCommunist Third International. As the German communists sustained their reputation for factionalism, during the internal party crisis of 1921 she was part of the left-wing majority on the Party Executive that voted through the expulsion ofPaul Levi. In August 1921 at the Seventh Party Conference atJena, and again at the Eighth Party Conference atLeipzig in January/February 1923, she was re-elected to the Party Executive and mandated to lead the party's Women's Secretariat.[2]
Later Bertha Braunthal-Clark and her Scottish born husband worked together on theComintern newspaperInprekorr ("InternationalPressCorrespondence") which had been set up in 1921 byGyula Alpári. It is not clear whether Bertha accompanied Willie Clark when he was working for Inprecor inVienna in 1929, but he relocated to Berlin in 1930.[4]
TheNazistook power in January 1933 and lost little time inconvertingtheGerman state into aone-party dictatorship. Party political activity (unless in support of the Nazi party) became illegal. Willie and Bertha moved toLondon.[3] They had already been working on creating an English language edition ofInprecor, and now they worked on a weekly newspaper entitled "World News and Views" which was in effect an English successor to that.[10] While retaining her membership of the exiledGerman Communist Party, Bertha Clark now also joined itsBritish counterpart.[4]
According to one left-leaning source, Willie and Bertha Clarks were subject to constant surveillance by theBritish security services after they moved to London,[4] and there is certainly a file with their names on it.[11] No source has been located to suggest that they werearrested and detained by the British authorities in 1940, however.
After the unexpected dissolution of theComintern in 1943, Bertha Clark undertook translation work for theBritish Communist Party.[2] She died in theLondon quarter ofIslington during the early summer of 1968.[1][4] Some sources give the year of her death as 1967.[2][3]
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