[1][2] Ilse Pottgießer was born in the Wedding quarter on the north side of central Berlin.
[1] At the start of 1933 the Nazis took power and lost little time in transforming Germany into a one-party dictatorship.
In 1934 the polarising impact of the new regime came close to home after her father expelled Nazis from the youth welfare office where he was working.
She was hugely supportive of initiatives and projects for child day care ("Eltern-Initiativ-Kindertagesstätten") to help working parents, and of other adventure playgrounds and women's refuges.
In 1990 she took on the leadership of the "Gropius city north citizen's parent-children circle initiative" ("Bürgerinitiative Eltern-Kinder-Kreis Gropiusstadt Nord e.V.").