.jpg)
Charlotte "Lotte"Ulbricht (néeKühn; 19 April 1903 – 27 March 2002[1]) was aSocialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) official and the second wife of theEast German leaderWalter Ulbricht.
She was born the younger of two children inRixdorf in 1903. Her father was an unskilled labourer and her mother a homeworker inBerlin. After attending primary and middle school, she worked as an office worker and a shorthand typist. In 1919, she joined the Free Socialist Youth movement, and in 1921, theCommunist Party of Germany. She worked for the Party'scentral committee and in 1922–23, was a shorthand typist with theCommunist Youth International (KJI) inMoscow.[1] Kühn was thereafter a member of the central committee of the KPD and the KPDReichstag group. In 1926–27 she wasarchivist with theKJI and then until 1931, secretary and shorthand typist at theSoviet Union's bureau of commerce inBerlin. In 1931, she emigrated to Moscow with her first husband, Erich Wendt. She became an instructor with theComintern and completed a distance learning study at the Academy of Marxism-Leninism and an evening course atMoscow State University. Following the arrest of her husband in 1936 during theStalinist purges, she divorced him the same year and was herself investigated. She remained under an official Party reprimand until 1938. From 1939 to 1941, she worked as acompositor at a foreign language printer, and later for the Comintern until 1945.[1]
Kühn's older brother, Bruno, was discovered by theGestapo in Amsterdam in 1943, working as a radio operator for theNKVD. He was executed in 1944, probably in Brussels.
Until 1947, she was a member of the central committee of the Communist Party. After 1947, she was a personal assistant to Walter Ulbricht, whom she knew from their time in Moscow, where they lived at theHotel Lux, along with numerous other German exiles. After her 1953 marriage to Ulbricht, she resigned her job working for him and began studying at the Institute for Social Sciences, which awarded her a Social Sciences Diploma in 1959. During 1959–73, she was employed by theInstitute for Marxism-Leninism, where, among other things, she was responsible for editing Walter Ulbricht'sspeeches and writings published by the Institute. She closely oversaw the editorial board members of the SED publications, namelyEinheit andNeuer Weg.[2]
In addition, she was a member of the Women's Commission of the Secretariat of the Central Committee and of thePolitburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. She retired in July 1973, a few weeks before the death of her husband. Lotte Ulbricht was much feted by the state and party leadership of East Germany, including in 1959, 1963, and 1978 theFatherland Order of Merit, in 1969 and 1983 theOrder of Karl Marx, and in 1988 theGrand Star of Friendship of Nations.
In a rare interview, afterGerman reunification, in 1990, she complained that "Honecker wasted my husband's inheritance".[1][3][note 1]
Ulbricht died on 27 March 2002. She lived at 12Majakowskiring Street,Pankow, Berlin. She and Walter adopted a Russian girl,Beate Ulbricht (1944–1991).
Media related toLotte Ulbricht at Wikimedia Commons| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
