Marie Priess

She belonged to the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and was a staunch opponent of the First World War led by the German Empire.

During the years of the Weimar Republic (1918–1933) she joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and became active against the emerging movement National Socialism and later called Nazism.

[1] After the transfer of power to the NSDAP, Marie Priess, as she was then known, continued her resistance to the Nazi regime illegally.

With the start of World War II, she belonged to the Bästlein-Jacob-Abshagen resistance group, which supported foreign forced laborers and provided shelter for persecuted people.

Together with her two sons Heinz and Viktor Priess and the teacher Ernst Mittelbach, she helped the German communists Erna Eifler and husband Wilhelm Fellendorf, who had parachuted into East Prussia in the summer of 1942.

Memorial stone for Marie Priess in the spiral of remembrance in the area of the Garden of Women at the Ohlsdorf Cemetery.