Kuckhoff, Greta (1902–1981)

Member of the anti-Nazi resistance organization "Red Orchestra," in which her husband played a crucial role, who supported his espionage activities despite the danger involved. Born Greta Lorke on December14, 1902, in Frankfurt an der Oder, Germany; died in 1981; married Adam Kuckhoff (1887–1943, a writer, editor and theater director), in 1937.

Born on December 14, 1902, in Frankfurt an der Oder, Greta Lorke grew up in modest circumstances, but her parents supported her desire for a higher education. After studying economics in Berlin and Würzburg from 1924 through 1927, she traveled to the United States, where she was enrolled at the University of Wisconsin, Madison from 1927 to 1929. While there, she became acquainted with Arvid Harnack (1901–1942) and Mildred Fish (Harnack) —friendships that would prove to be fateful in later years. Returning to Europe, Greta worked in Zurich, then moved to Frankfurt am Main and Berlin where she taught courses in American business law and also did translations. In 1937, she married the writer, editor and theater director Adam Kuckhoff.

Adam despised the Nazi regime and was an active member of resistance circles, editing the underground newspaper Die Innere Front. Greta too desired the liberation of Germany and became an active member of the spy organization "Red Orchestra" which was led by her husband, Harro Schulze-Boysen (1904–1942) and Arvid Harnack (who had married her American-born friend Mildred Fish). Crucial military information radioed to Moscow by the Red Orchestra network may well have saved the Soviet Union and changed the course of World War II.

Greta Kuckhoff and her husband were arrested on September 12, 1942, and both were interrogated at the notorious Berlin headquarters of the Gestapo, Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8. The Kuckhoffs received death sentences, but while Adam's was carried out on August 5, 1943, Greta's was reduced to a term of ten years' hard labor. She was liberated from the Waldheim penitentiary in May 1945.

Following the war, Kuckhoff had a significant political career. In 1945, she joined the German Communist Party, which became the Socialist Unity party in 1946. In 1945–46, she was the highest civilian official in charge of food supplies in Soviet-occupied Berlin. In 1948, she was appointed to the German Economic Commission in the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany, and the next year became a division chief of the newly created Foreign Ministry of the infant German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany). She also was elected to the People's Chamber in 1949, holding her seat until 1958. In December 1950, she became president of the German Bank of Issue, a post that entitled her to a vote in the Council of Ministers of the GDR. After leaving her bank post in 1958, she became a vice president of the German Peace Council. In 1963, she was appointed president of the German-British Society. Greta Kuckhoff published her memoirs in 1972; they were popular in the GDR, being reprinted many times in the 1970s and 1980s, and are a significant source of information on the Red Orchestra spy network. She died in 1981.

sources:

Biernat, Karl Heinz, and Luise Kraushaar. Die Schulze-Boysen-Harnack-Organisation im antifaschistischen Kampf. Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1970.

Kuckhoff, Greta. Vom Rosenkranz zur Roten Kapelle: Ein Lebensbericht. 7th ed. Berlin: Verlag Neues Leben, 1986.

Perrault, Gilles. The Red Orchestra. NY: Schocken Books, 1989.

Rürup, Reinhard. Topographie des Terrors: Gestapo, SS und Reichssicherheitshauptamt auf dem "Prinz-Albrecht-Gelände": Eine Dokumentation. 7th ed. Berlin: Verlag Willmuth Arenhövel, 1989.

Trepper, Leopold. The Great Game: Memoirs of the Spy Hitler Couldn't Silence. NY: McGraw-Hill, 1977.

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. The Rote Kapelle: The CIA's History of Soviet Intelligence and Espionage Networks in Western Europe, 1936–1945. Washington, DC: University Publications of America, 1979.

John Haag , Associate Professor of History, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia