Inge von Wangenheim

Inge Franke was born into a working-class family in Berlin. Her mother was a garment worker. On leaving school she attended a drama academy, before taking a succession of minor acting roles at various theatres including that at the Schiffbauerdamm, also taking small parts in productions staged by Erwin Piscator. She joined the Communist Party (KPD) in 1930.[2] In 1931 she joined "Truppe 1931", a newly formed theatre group created from the communist cell in the Berlin Artists' Colony. The originator and leader of "Truppe 1931" was an actor-impresario called Gustav von Wangenheim, whom Inge would later marry.[2] Wangenheim had himself made a name as a silent film actor (his most remembered role would be as Thomas Hutter in Nosferatu, F. W. Murnau's 1922 adaptation of Dracula).

In January 1933 the Nazi Party took power and quickly set about creating a one party state. Membership of any party other than the Nazi party – and particularly of the Communist Party – became illegal. Ingeborg went into exile, initially to Belgium and France, then moving on with Gustav von Wangenheim to Moscow where, as she would later write, she arrived in a spirit of "naive enthusiasm".[4] In Moscow she was able to work as a journalist and as an actress, joining the Moscow-based "German Theatre Crew of the Left" (Deutsche Theater Kolonne Links) in 1934. In 1937 Inge von Wangenheim took Soviet citizenship.[2] On the stage her appearances included the starring role, alongside Bruno Schmidtsdorf, in the Moscow produced anti-fascist film, "Kämpfer" ("Fighters"), directed and scripted by her husband Gustav von Wangenheim.

When the German army invaded the Soviet Union von Wangenheim was evacuated, first to Kazan in the Russian east and later to Tashkent. During the period of the evacuation her younger son, Edi, died in Chistopol aged 8 months in 1941.[4][5] She was able to return to Moscow in 1943, working as a contributing editor for the National Committee for a Free Germany (NKFD / Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland) and for the eponymous German language radio broadcaster.[2]

In 1945 Inge von Wangenheim returned to what was left of Germany, settling in the Soviet occupation zone. This part of the country was being transformed into a separate Germany, the German Democratic Republic.[6] In 1946 she became a member of the new country's newly formed ruling SED, which had been created through a contrived merger in East Germany of the old Communist and SPD parties. In the years that followed she became involved with the "Association of German People's Theatre" ("Bund Deutscher Volksbühnen"), working during 1947/48 as editor of the organisation's journal "Volksbühne". In addition, she resumed her theatre career, both as an actress and a producer. She appeared in the Deutsches Theater, which in 1945 was reopened by her husband, in East Berlin. She also undertook work for the East German state-owned film studio DEFA. She starred in the 1948 film "Und wieder 48" ("Another '48") which was scripted and directed by her husband, and which concerned itself with the revolutionary events of 1848, inevitably inviting comparisons with 1948.[7]

From 1949 she worked, primarily, as a writer.[2] Inge von Wangenheim was a member of the (East) German Writers' Association, and later a member of its executive committee.

Gustav and Ingeborg von Wangenheim were divorced in 1960 after which Ingeborg moved to Rudolstadt in Thuringia and lived in a lesbian partnership. She and her partner moved again to nearby Weimar in 1974. Her daughter's family managed to emigrate to West Germany in 1982,[4] but Ingeborg stayed in the German Democratic Republic till its end, and died in Weimar[4] less than three years after the reunification.[2]

On 9 December 2010 a Literary Institute was founded at Rudolstadt, where she had once lived, and named after her. The institute has as its principal objectives:[9]
(1) the regular award of a literary contribution to Humanism and Peace,
(2) to bring together the life's works of authors whose books were banned during the Nazi years, and make these available and
(3) to train and publish young authors.