Ilse Stephan
{{Short description|German politician (1931–1984)}}
{{good article}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific_prefix =
| name = Ilse Stephan
| honorific_suffix =
| image =
| image_size =
| caption =
| order =
|office = Head of the General Department Working Group of the Central Committee
|1blankname = {{nowrap|Secretary}}
|1namedata = {{ubl|Hermann Axen}}
| term_start = 16 April 1981
| term_end = 19 June 1984
| predecessor = Werner Albrecht
| successor = Position abolished
| birth_name = Ilse Korth
| birth_date = {{birth date|1931|05|08|df=y}}
| birth_place = Hamburg, Weimar Republic {{small|(now Germany)}}
| residence =
| occupation = {{hlist|Interpreter|Party Functionary}}
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1984|06|25|1931|05|08}}
| death_place =
| death_cause = Suicide by hanging
| spouse =
| children =
| party = Socialist Unity Party
{{small|(1956–1984)}}
| alma_mater = {{Plainlist|
}}
| website =
}}
Ilse Stephan ({{née}} Korth; 8 May 1931 – 25 June 1984) was a German interpreter and party functionary of the Socialist Unity Party (SED).
Stephan, whose stepfather was a communist functionary, emigrated to the Soviet Union after Adolf Hitler's rise to power. Her stepfather became a victim of the Great Purge and she was deported to the Kazakh SSR.
She returned to East Germany in 1955, where she became an interpreter and party functionary for the Central Committee of the SED. One of only a handful of women in the SED's nomenklatura, Stephan rose to head the Central Committee's General Department Working Group in 1981.
Stephan was fired in 1984 after making critical remarks regarding tensions between the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the SED and committed suicide shortly thereafter.
Life and career
=Early life and family=
Stephan was born in Hamburg on 8 May 1931 as Ilse Korth.{{Cite web |last=Erler |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Erler |year=2009 |title=Stephan, Ilse |url=https://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/de/recherche/kataloge-datenbanken/biographische-datenbanken/ilse-stephan |access-date=2025-01-04 |website=www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de |series=Wer war wer in der DDR? |publisher=Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship |language=de}} Her stepfather was Heinrich "Heino" Meyer, a teacher and local functionary of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in Hamburg.{{Cite web |last=Herbst |first=Andreas |last2=Weber |first2=Hermann |year=2008 |title=Meyer, Heinrich (Heino) |url=https://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/de/recherche/kataloge-datenbanken/biographische-datenbanken/heinrich-heino-meyer |access-date=2025-01-04 |website=www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de |series=Handbuch der Deutschen Kommunisten |publisher=Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship |language=de}}{{Cite book |last=Uschner |first=Manfred |author-link=Manfred Uschner |title=Die zweite Etage: Funktionsweise eines Machtapparates |date=1993 |publisher=Dietz |isbn=978-3-320-01792-7 |series=Zeitthemen |location=Berlin |pages=89–90 |language=de}}
After Hitler came to power, Meyer was arrested in December 1932 and Korth, under the cover name "Gerda Zinke",{{Cite book |url=https://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/sites/default/files/uploads/files/2023-12/RemigratListeXI2023.pdf |title=Überarbeitete Liste, nachgearbeitet bis XI 2023. |publisher=Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship |year=2023 |language=de |access-date=2025-05-18}}{{rp||page=77}} emigrated with her mother to the Soviet Union in December 1933. Meyer was released from a concentration camp in 1934, after which he too emigrated to the Soviet Union, where he, like many other members of the exiled KPD leadership in Moscow, became a victim of the Great Purge.{{rp||page=43}} Korth was deported from Moscow to Pachtaaral in the southernmost Kazakh SSR in 1941. After attending school, she worked as an electrical mechanic. Korth eventually married, taking on the name Ilse Löffler, and had a son in 1953.{{rp||page=34}} Her application to become a Soviet citizen was rejected on 10 June 1947.{{rp||page=66}}
=Career in East Germany=
In 1955 and 1956, most remaining German communists and their families that had fled to the Soviet Union (referred to as "Politemigranten" by the SED) where repatriated back to Germany. Ilse Korth, as she was now known again,{{Cite web |year=2007 |editor-last=Räuber |editor-first=Ute |title=Protokoll Nr. 47/55 Sitzung am 23. November 1955 |url=http://www.argus.bstu.bundesarchiv.de/dy30sekp/index.htm?kid=ee3dd822-9ff6-4e14-95d1-cab4e5bfdea1 |access-date=2025-05-18 |website=www.argus.bstu.bundesarchiv.de |series=Protokolle des Sekretariats des ZK der SED |publisher=German Federal Archives |language=de |publication-place=Berlin |quote=9. Aufnahme der Annemarie Erdmann und Ilse Korth als Kandidat in die SED}} returned to what was now East Germany in October 1955 with her widowed mother and began working as a Russian language interpreter.{{rp||page=34, 43}}{{Cite journal |last=Blum |first=Hanna |last2=Schmitz |first2=Manfred |date=2023 |title=Austausch – Ausverhandlung – Ausbildung: Die Rolle von Berufsorganisationen für die Sprachmittlung in der DDR |url=https://chronotopos.eu/cts/article/view/155 |journal=chronotopos – A Journal of Translation History |language=de |volume=5 |issue=2 |page=49 |pages= |doi=10.70596/cts155 |issn=2617-3441 |quote=Ilse Stephan, Dolmetscherin und Leiterin der Allgemeinen Arbeitsgruppe des Zentralkomitees der SED (später, nach ihrem Suizid, integriert in die Abteilung Internationale Verbindungen)|doi-access=free }} She applied to join the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) in November of the same year. She, now remarried as Ilse Stephan, was accepted by the Secretariat of the Central Committee as a full party member in October 1956.{{rp||page=66}}{{Cite web |year=2007 |editor-last=Räuber |editor-first=Ute |title=Protokoll Nr. 35/56 Sitzung am 31. Oktober 1956 |url=http://www.argus.bstu.bundesarchiv.de/dy30sekp/index.htm?kid=0edfffdf-b371-46ec-bc15-5b7ec94c1004 |access-date=2025-01-04 |website=www.argus.bstu.bundesarchiv.de |series=Protokolle des Sekretariats des ZK der SED |publisher=German Federal Archives |language=de |publication-place=Berlin |quote=8. Aufnahme der Politemigrantin Ilse Stephan als Kandidat in die SED}}
She became an employee of the General Department of the Central Committee of the SED, the SED's liaison office to the CPSU,{{Cite web |year=2002 |editor-last=Gräfe |editor-first=Sylvia |title=Büro Erich Honecker im ZK der SED |url=http://www.argus.bstu.bundesarchiv.de/dy30bho/index.htm?kid=31491d83-bf5a-4f54-818a-4aa458db9f92 |access-date=2025-05-18 |website=www.argus.bstu.bundesarchiv.de |publisher=German Federal Archives |language=de |publication-place=Berlin |quote=die Allgemeine Abteilung als Schaltstelle zwischen SED und KPdSU}} among other things translating CPSU publications.{{Cite journal |year=1973 |title=Neu bei Dietz |url=https://www.gvoon.de/art/dokumente/1973/neuer-weg-zk-sed-ddr-1973/pdf/neuer-weg-zk-sed-ddr-1973-seite_0883.pdf |journal=Neuer Weg |language=de |issue=1/1973 |pages=883 |quote=Aus dem Russischen von Ilse Stephan.}} From 1971 to 1972, she attended a one-year course at the CPSU Higher Party School "W. I. Lenin" in Moscow. Stephan, who was as fluent in Russian as in German, eventually rose to become Erich Honecker's chief interpreter.{{rp||page=34}}
When fellow Soviet emigrant Werner Albrecht retired as head of the General Department in 1981, Stephan succeeded him after the 10th Party Congress in April.{{Cite book |last=Malycha |first=Andreas |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1524/9783110347852/html |title=Die SED in der Ära Honecker: Machtstrukturen, Entscheidungsmechanismen und Konfliktfelder in der Staatspartei 1971 bis 1989 |date=2014-09-11 |publisher=De Gruyter Oldenbourg |isbn=978-3-11-034785-2 |pages=84 |language=de |doi=10.1524/9783110347852}} She only held the rank of a deputy department head as the General Department was simultaneously downgraded to the "General Department Working Group".{{Cite web |year=2006 |editor-last=Gräfe |editor-first=Sylvia |title=Büro Hermann Axen im ZK der SED |url=http://www.argus.bstu.bundesarchiv.de/dy30bax/index.htm?kid=c5946f73-fff8-4075-9835-9a2f8e1d8eb0 |access-date=2025-01-04 |website=www.argus.bstu.bundesarchiv.de |publisher=German Federal Archives |language=de |publication-place=Berlin |quote=die Allgemeine Abteilung im Zentralkomitee (ab Mai 1977, heruntergestuft zu einer Arbeitsgruppe Allgemeine Abteilung 1981, die im Juni 1984 in den Sektor Dolmetscher/ Übersetzer umbenannt und der Abt. Internationale Verbindungen zugeordnet wurde)}}
=Downfall and death=
Stephan eventually found herself caught in the increasing tensions between the CPSU and the SED. Honecker accused her of being at fault for these tensions for allegedly translating wrongly during a June 1984 visit to CPSU General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko, something disputed by both herself and others present. In the weeks prior, Stephan had already voiced her frustrations about these tensions privately to Manfred Uschner, personal assistant to Hermann Axen, the Central Committee Secretary responsible for her working group, saying she would tell the Soviets about the inner problems of the SED if things went on as they were. Uschner has since alleged that these conversations were secretly recorded by the Stasi. Uschner has also called her "a great admirer of Mikhail Gorbachev".
Honecker immediately ordered Axen to dismiss her. She was dismissed as working group head on 19 June 1984 following a decision by the Central Committee. A week later, on 25 June 1984, she committed suicide by hanging. In her suicide note, immediately confiscated by the Stasi, she attacked both Honecker and Axen. After her death, the General Department Working Group was abolished and integrated into the International Relations Department as a new interpreter/translator sector.{{Cite web |year=2007 |editor-last=Räuber |editor-first=Ute |title=Protokoll Nr. 70/84 Umlauf am 19. Juni 1984 |url=http://www.argus.bstu.bundesarchiv.de/dy30sekp/index.htm?kid=48f7415f-e411-4a8b-b9a8-c4b62137141c |access-date=2025-01-04 |website=www.argus.bstu.bundesarchiv.de |series=Protokolle des Sekretariats des ZK der SED |publisher=German Federal Archives |language=de |publication-place=Berlin |quote=9. Umwandlung der Arbeitsgruppe Allgemeine Abteilung in den Sektor Dolmetscher/Übersetzer der Abteilung Internationale Verbindungen des ZK der SED (Stephan)}}{{Cite web |year=2007 |editor-last=Gräfe |editor-first=Sylvia |title=Abteilung Internationale Verbindungen im ZK der SED |url=http://www.argus.bstu.bundesarchiv.de/dy30aiv/index.htm?kid=621e9bff-571a-43af-8d47-0fc4de1fc262 |access-date=2025-01-15 |website=www.argus.bstu.bundesarchiv.de |publisher=German Federal Archives |language=de |publication-place=Berlin |quote=Das Schriftgut der Allgemeinen Abteilung ging nach Bildung des Sektors Dolmetscher und Übersetzer im Jahre 1984 in die Abteilung Internationale Verbindungen über.}}
References
{{Reflist}}
Category:20th-century German women politicians
Category:East German women in politics
Category:Politicians from Hamburg
Category:Socialist Unity Party of Germany politicians
Category:Emigrants from Nazi Germany
Category:Great Purge victims from Germany
Category:German emigrants to the Soviet Union
Category:Suicides by hanging in Germany
Category:Suicides in East Germany