Ruthild Hahne's father is variously described as a businessman and as a factory owner.
13 Facts About Ruthild Hahne
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2.
Ruthild Hahne grew up in a prosperous household in a substantial family home in Berlin's Schmockwitz quarter.
3.
Ruthild Hahne attended the single-sex secondary school in the city's Neukolln quarter.
4.
Since 1938 Ruthild Hahne had been identified by the Gestapo as a member of the Red Orchestra, a classification used by the authorities that included those believed to be involved in political activism or espionage activities on behalf of the Soviet Union.
5.
Ruthild Hahne received a prison sentence of slightly less than five years.
6.
In February 1945 Ruthild Hahne was able to escape from the women's prison in Cottbus where she was being held: she now joined up with the Red army.
7.
War ended in May 1945 and in June 1945 Ruthilde Hahne returned to Berlin, penniless but free.
8.
Ruthild Hahne now lost no time in joining the Communist Party of Germany and when, in April 1946, within what would later become East Germany the party was controversially merged to form the new Socialist Unity Party, she was among the thousands who lost no time in signing their membership across to what quickly evolved to become the ruling party for a new kind of German dictatorship.
9.
In 1953 Ruthild Hahne beat 182 rivals in a competition to provide a vast memorial to the former Communist leader Ernst Thalmann, to be placed what became, till 1986, Thalmann Square.
10.
Ruthild Hahne was finally obliged to end work on the project in 1965: in the end, it was not till 1986 that a new national leader, Erich Honecker sanctioned Berlin's official public memorial to Thalmann, but it was placed in a different location and produced by a different artist, comrade Lev Kerbel.
11.
Ruthild Hahne nevertheless continued to produce portrait busts, notably of the writers Bruno Apitz and Kurt Stern.
12.
In 1971, which coincidentally or not was the year in which Walter Ulbricht lost power, Ruthild Hahne was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver.
13.
Ruthild Hahne's legacy has been nurtured by her adopted son, Dr Stefan Hahne.