[2] She was a life-long supporter of Native American causes[3] and the author of two series of revisionist Western novels,[4][5] which retell US history from a Oglala Lakota point of view.

At age nine, she was gifted by an uncle James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, which awakened in her a life-long love and interest for Native American peoples.

[9] She was urged to pursue a post-doctoral degree (habilitation), but her academic career was cut short by her family's finances due to hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic.

She clandestinely delivered food and medication to interned Jews and French prisoners of war and assisted inmates from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp brought into Berlin as laborers.

[10] Although she remained outwardly uncritical of party rule, in the words of one commentator she was not so much a communist, as a "friend of the people" ("....in erster Linie nicht Kommunistin, vielmehr Menschenfreundin").

[11] Welskopf-Henrich's son, writing in his foreword to the 2015 post-humous edition of her novel,“Bertholds neue Welt", identifies the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary as a turning point in his mother's political position.

Based on a collection of quotes on ancient history from Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, the thesis made apparent that Welskopf-Henrich had moved on from a Stalinist standpoint.

One year later, she was made the head of the Ancient History department[2] and in 1964 she became the first woman to be elected a full member of the German Academy of Sciences.

Supported by over sixty academics from East and West Germany and other countries, "Die Hellenische Poleis ("The Hellenistic Polis") was published by Akademie Verlag, Berlin, in 1973 in four volumes.

In her follow-up work, supported by more than one-hundred contributors from forty countries, Welskopf-Henrich, classified social classes in Ancient Greece.

[15] "Soziale Typenbegriffe im alten Griechenland" ("Social Classes of Ancient Greece"), was published in 1981 in seven volumes by Akademie Verlag, Berlin.

As her revisionist Western novels grew popular internationally, Welskopf-Henrich was able to travel beyond the confines of Soviet sponsored fraternal socialism.

Between 1963 and 1974, Welskopf-Henrich undertook a succession of trips to the United States and to Canada to study the lives, culture, and traditions of the Lakota.

Historically accurate,[3] the novels give a humanistic portrayal of the Lakota and center on two pivotal events in US history: Custer’s 1876 defeat in Little Big Horn and the 1973 Occupation of Wounded Knee.

He contributes to uniting the Lakota against Custer at the 1876 Battle of Little Big Horn and leads his people to freedom across the Missouri into Canada.

The protagonist's convictions are tested and in Tokei-ihto, the hero of "Die Söhne der Großen Bärin", Welskopf-Henrich saw a leader with "unflinching willingness to endure extreme hardship, while working to save his community.

"[3] Welskopf-Henrich's first exposure to stories involving Native Americans were James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales at age nine.

[3] Turning to authentic sources, she read Dakota author Charles Eastman, who was highly successful in Germany during the interwar years.

[3] Eastman remained a life-long influence[7] and Welskopf-Henrich studied the work of anthropologists Franz Boas, Alice Fletcher, Frances Densmore, and Margaret Mead .

[3] She petitioned public officials about the plight of Native Americans whom she had met in prisons and offered to help pay for their legal defense.

The two maintained a life-long friendship and Howe described Welskopf-Henrich as a “German Ella Deloria: grandmotherly, kind, and very interested in people.

[32] AIM co-founder Russel Means was a regular guest at Welskopf-Henrich's house, visiting her for the third time after the Geneva human rights conference.

Because of her open support for AIM, Welskopf-Henrich spent a night in the Pine Ridge Tribal Jail and was detained and interrogated by the FBI.