Gitta Bauer (born 1919 in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, died 1990) was a German journalist.

Opposing Nazism

She was born into a liberal family and raised a Catholic. She was a member of a Catholic movement, that was banned by the Nazis in 1935. Some years later, she was sent to prison for publishing a small newspaper with six friends, that advocated peace. In 1944, her childhood friend, Ilse Baumgart, who was half Jewish and lived in Berlin under an assumed identity, where she worked as a secretary, got into great trouble. Upon hearing of the

20 July plot The 20 July plot, sometimes referred to as Operation Valkyrie, was a failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, the chancellor and leader of Nazi Germany, and overthrow the Nazi regime on 20 July 1944. The plotters were part of the German r ...

, she asked "Is the swine (Hitler) dead? Then the war is finally over". Her comment was reported, but the officer who came to arrest her was himself opposed to the Nazis, and gave her 15 minutes to escape. She was then hidden for the next nine months in the home of Gitta Bauer. Bauer later recounted: "This was no big moral or religious decision. She was a friend and she needed help. We knew it was dangerous, and we were careful, but we didn't consider not taking her". In 1984 Gitta Bauer was honored as a "

Righteous among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( ) is a title used by Yad Vashem to describe people who, for various reasons, made an effort to assist victims, mostly Jews, who were being persecuted and exterminated by Nazi Germany, Fascist Romania, Fascist Italy, ...

" by

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem (; ) is Israel's official memorial institution to the victims of Holocaust, the Holocaust known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (). It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the ...

for saving her friend. She was initially in doubt about accepting the honor, not feeling she did anything extraordinary, but eventually she did.

Opposing communism

In 1945, she met her husband, Leo Bauer (1912–1972), a Jewish communist veteran. In 1950 their son was born in East Berlin. The same year Leo Bauer was arrested together with his wife Gitta and his sister-in-law Hilde Dubro (who happened to visit them at the time) by the communist regime, accused of being an American spy, and sent to a

Gulag The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...

concentration camp in

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

. Gitta Bauer was imprisoned by the

Stasi The Ministry for State Security (, ; abbreviated MfS), commonly known as the (, an abbreviation of ), was the Intelligence agency, state security service and secret police of East Germany from 1950 to 1990. It was one of the most repressive pol ...

for circa 3 years, first at

Bautzen Bautzen () or Budyšin (), until 1868 ''Budissin'' in German, is a town in eastern Saxony, Germany, and the administrative centre of the Bautzen (district), district of Bautzen. It is located on the Spree (river), Spree river, is the eighth most ...

and then at the Waldheim women's prison. Following her release, she became an ardent

anti-communist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communist beliefs, groups, and individuals. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when th ...

, escaping to

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

, where she worked as a journalist for the

Springer Springer or springers may refer to: Publishers * Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishing group founded in 1842 in Germany formerly known as Springer-Verlag. ** Springer Nature, a multinationa ...

Foreign News Service. She was joined in West Germany by her husband, who became a social democrat and a journalist for the West German magazine ''

Stern The stern is the back or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite the bow, the foremost part of a ship. O ...

''.Ilan Berman, J. Michael Waller, ''Dismantling tyranny: transitioning beyond totalitarian regimes'', p. 72, Rowman & Littlefield, 2006, ,

References

External links

Gitta Bauer
– her activity to save Jews' lives during the

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

, at

website {{DEFAULTSORT:Bauer, Gitta Journalists from Berlin German anti-communists German Righteous Among the Nations German women journalists 20th-century German journalists 1990 deaths 1919 births Roman Catholics in the German Resistance 20th-century German women writers 20th-century German writers German people who rescued Jews during the Holocaust