In 1945 she relocated to what now became the Soviet occupation zone (after October 1949 East Germany) where she became the first General Secretary of the politically important Democratic Women's League ("Demokratischer Frauenbund Deutschlands" / DFD).
[1] Since the 2020s, Maria Rentmeister's life, work and achievements have been researched in more depth in contemporary German historiography of the post-war period and highlighted in a number of publications.
[2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] Maria Rentmeister was born in Sterkrade (Oberhausen) in Germany's heavily industrialised Ruhr/Rhine region, the eldest of her parents' six children.
She used to send him stock market reports and financial statements in respect of the large industrial firms in the Ruhr regions.
In 1929 she emigrated to the United States where, according to at least one widely requoted source, she remained for three years and worked as a "labourer" (als "Arbeiterin").
[1][8] By the end of 1932 was heading up the women's section in the party's district leadership team ("Unterbezirksleitung") for Oberhausen, and was also a Communist town councillor.
Two cities, in particular, were rapidly becoming the de facto head quarter locations for the German Communist Party in exile: Paris and Moscow.
There she worked during 1934/35 for the ambitiously named "World Committee against War and Fascism" ("Weltkomitee gegen Krieg und Faschismus").
[1][13] This also involved taking over administrative responsibility for the World Committee's newspaper, "Weltfront" which was produced under the editorship of Albert Norden who many years later would become an influential senior journalist in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).
[1] One senior activist comrade who escaped to Paris during the Autumn/Fall of 1935 was Wilhelm Beuttel, who took on a position of responsibility for political "education" within the exiled party leadership.
[1] At the same time she worked with others[16] for the German Communist Party leadership's "western division" ("KPD-Abschnittsleitung West") on the "Westdeutsche Kampfblätter" (resistance newspaper), produced for (illegal) distribution among comrades living "underground" (unregistered at their town halls), across the frontier in Nazi Germany.
[1] One source also mentions collaboration with exiled German SPD activists,[13] although this would at this time still have run counter to the policy of the powerfully influential Soviet Party Leadership over in Moscow.
[1] The Netherlands had avoided full military involvement in the First World War, and Chancellor Hitler's guarantee of Dutch neutrality in November 1939 encouraged the already widespread belief that in this respect history might be about to repeat itself.
[19] It was not something that those present were equipped to address effectively, but report of that speech does provide an early glimpse of the slow-burn build-up to the 1953 uprising.
She was also one of those selected, the next year, for membership of the second People's Council which replaced the first in May 1949 and went on to constitute itself, in October 1949, as the East German parliament (Volkskammer).
[1] In 1947 Maria Renrtmeister was one of the founders of the Democratic Women's League (Demokratischer Frauenbund Deutschlands/ DFD), serving as a member of its national executive.
[1] The DFD was one of five mass organisations which, under the centralised Leninist government model being adopted, was designed to broaden the popular legitimacy of the overall political structure.