A stumbling block in front of her birthplace in downtown Lübeck now commemorates the resistance fighter Gertrud Meyer (1914-2002). The long-time life partner of Willy Brandt (1913-1992) was involved in the 1930s together with the later SPD Chancellor against National Socialism.
The Stolperstein is a reminder of “their tireless commitment against fascism, their persecution, their exile, but also their courage and their steadfastness,” said Gerhard Eikenbusch from the Lübeck Initiative for Stolpersteine when it was laid.
Meyer gained wider fame in 2013 with the publication of a biography. As a teenager she joined the Socialist Workers’ Youth (SAJ). There she met Willy Brandt, with whom she also entered into a personal relationship. After five weeks in prison in 1933, the then 19-year-old left Germany and followed Brandt into exile Norwaywhere they continued their resistance work. In 1939 she traveled to the USA without Brandt at the request of her employer.
Settled in Norway
A planned return the following year failed due to the Wehrmacht’s occupation of Norway. The private relationship with Brandt later ended from a distance, as he had started a new relationship without her knowledge. After the end of World War II she returned to Norway and settled there. She remained politically active there and worked as a secretary and voice stenographer in a patent office. Meyer died in Oslo in 2002 at the age of 89.
Since 1992, the artist Gunter Demnig has been commemorating the victims of the Nazi era by placing brass memorial plaques on the sidewalk in front of their last chosen place of residence. There are now stumbling blocks in 1,265 municipalities in Germany and in 21 European countries.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:241001-930-249185/1
A stumbling block in front of her birthplace in downtown Lübeck now commemorates the resistance fighter Gertrud Meyer (1914-2002). The long-time life partner of Willy Brandt (1913-1992) was involved in the 1930s together with the later SPD Chancellor against National Socialism.
The Stolperstein is a reminder of “their tireless commitment against fascism, their persecution, their exile, but also their courage and their steadfastness,” said Gerhard Eikenbusch from the Lübeck Initiative for Stolpersteine when it was laid.
