Kthe Latzke

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Personal

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Family

German political activist (KPD) who resisted Nazism and spent most of her final twelve years in state detention. In 1916 she met the tailor and left-wing activist Hans Westermann who subsequently became her life partner. In 1920 she relocated to Hamburg where she and Hans Westermann moved in together. In 1924 she joined the Communist Party. She also joined the AfA-Bund (trades union). She worked in the Hamburg office of "Red Aid" ("Rote Hilfe"), a workers' welfare organisation, between 1926 and 1930. The political backdrop changed dramatically in January 1933 when the Nazis took power and converted Germany into a one-party dictatorship. Political activity (except in support of the Nazi party) became illegal. Westermann and Lateze were both arrested, along with other members of the former "Westermann Group" overnight on 5/6 March 1935. Westermann died, probably as a result of the torture to which he was subjected at the pre-trial detention centre, on 16 March 1935. Latzke was also subjected to appalling mistreatment, but she survived and on 26 June 1935 faced the Hamburg District High Court. She served her two-year prison sentence then was held for several more years in "protective detention" ("Schutzhaft"). In 1940 she was released. At the end of 1943, she was rearrested, and in April 1944 she was transferred to Ravensbrück concentration camp where she died on 31 March 1945, following complications arising from the typhus to which she had fallen victim. Link to Wikipedia biography