After 1945 she quickly emerged as a senior politician and party loyalist in the Soviet occupation zone (after October 1949 the German Democratic Republic / East Germany).

A long-standing leading figure in the Ministry for the Health Service), she also served, between 1949 and 1970, as head of the national "Mother and Child department" ("Hauptabteilung Mutter und Kind").

Darmstadt, which was also the city where she grew up and lived as a young adult, had become a prosperous industrial, commercial and cultural centre during the second half of the nineteenth century.

[1][3] Between November 1924 and 1925 Kern studied at the "Akademie der Arbeit" (loosely, "Labour Academy"), linked to Frankfurt University.

[1][3] Between October 1928 and the middle of 1933 Kern was a member of the SPD regional leadership committee for Greater Berlin and head of the "Women's Secretariat" of the local party.

Meanwhile, in January 1933, the National Socialists grabbed the opportunity presented by parliamentary deadlock and a resulting political crisis to take power.

They rapidly converted Germany into a one-party dictatorship and set about dealing with known activist members of (after March 1933 outlawed) rival political parties.

Between January 1935 and 1945 she was employed initially as a typist and later as a secretary by the mining conglomerate "Preußische Bergwerks- und Hütten-Aktiengesellschaft" at the company's Berlin administrative centre.

Almost at once Kern joined the reinstated party and became a member of its national "Zentralausschuss" (approximately, "Central Committee"), based in Berlin.

She became a member of the newly launched [Soviet zone] Trades Union Federation ("Freier Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund" / FDGB).

[4] In 1947 Käthe Kern was a co-founder of the "Demokratischer Frauenbund Deutschlands" ("Democratic Women's League of [East] Germany" / DFD), becoming one of the movement's five honorary (unpaid) vice-presidents.

Kern's position in the leadership cabal of the DFD conferred on her a political weight beyond that which would be associated with a "women's organisation" in a western-style democracy.

[1][3] The relaunch of the Soviet occupation zone as the Soviet sponsored German Democratic Republic (East Germany) on 7 October 1949 coincided with the ninth session of the "Zweite Deutsche Volksrat" (second "People's Assembly"), which at around 12.45 that same day passed a resolution transforming itself into the "Provisorische Volkskammer" ("Provisional People's Parliament" of East Germany).

[1] Her successor in the regional parliament was her elderly party comrade Frieda Voß, who held the seat from 27 April 1950 till the election of 15 October 1950.

She was cremated and honoured with burial at the Memorial to the Socialists (German: Gedenkstätte der Sozialisten) in the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery, Berlin.

Fellow members of the Party Central Committee who joined in the celebration at the cemetery included Horst Dohlus, Herbert Häber and Werner Krolikowski.