[1][2] Minna Fettke was born into a working-class family in Nieder Bielau, now called Bielawa Dolna in Poland.
Sources accessed are silent on her early years, but by 1907, when she was identified as Minna Reichert (housewife) living in Berlin, it is evident that she had married.
In September 1915 she participated in the international Zimmerwald Conference which condemned the imperialism of the "capitalist classes" responsible for the war.
[1] Two years later, when the German Social Democratic party finally broke apart over the issue of continued support for funding the war, Reichert was one of those who broke away to form the Independent Social Democratic Party ("Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands" / USPD).
Along with her fellow communist, Hedwig Machlitt from Eisleben, in 1921 she was one of the first two women ever to be elected to the Saxon Provinziallandtag.