Emmy Damerius-Koenen

Emmy Damerius-Koenen (March 15, 1903 – May 21, 1987) was an East German politician. She was married to Helmut Damerius from 1922 to 1927 and later, was married to Wilhelm Koenen. She was a member of the Communist Party of Germany and spent most of the Nazi era outside Germany, in the Soviet Union and other countries. She returned to Germany in December 1945, where she was active in East German women's organizations.

Damerius-Koenen was born Emma Zadach to working class parents in Berlin-Rosenthal. She was one of four children. After attending Volksschule, she took classes at an evening trade school. She then worked as a shop clerk at Heymann & Schmidt GmbH Berlin, an art printer; she was later employed at other printers. In 1922, she and Helmut Damerius were married and were active with the Friends of Nature and pacifists. In 1923, she joined the Communist Youth Association of Germany, and in 1924, the Communist Party of Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, or KPD). She and Damerius had one child, who died when very young. She and Damerius were divorced in 1927.

Until 1934, she worked as a full-time volunteer for the district leadership of the Berlin-Brandenburg KPD, first as a political worker and then as leader of the women's division. After the Nazi Party seized power in 1933, the KPD and other opposition parties were outlawed, making such work illegal. In 1934, learning that she was on a Gestapo list, she went to Moscow and worked in the Women's Secretariat of the Communist International. In 1935 and 1936, she attended the Communist University of the National Minorities of the West in Moscow using her cadre name, Emmy Dublin. She had been living with Leo Scharko, a Polish communist. In 1936, he was arrested in the Great Purge and came back a few weeks later, humorless and tense. Although he didn't reveal much about his confinement, Damerius-Koenen apparently deduced he had agreed to denounce others. After the University was closed, she was sent to work with the Party leadership in Paris, Prague and Zurich. From Paris, she and Scharko corresponded, although with precautions such as invisible ink and cover addresses. Learning that the verity of Scharko's academic background was being challenged because of a lack of documentation in his cadre file, she managed to acquire a copy of the missing degree, which she forwarded to Scharko. Rather than prove his credentials, however, the document was taken as substantiation that Scharko had connections in Nazi Germany, a deadly serious charge in the Soviet Union at that time. As Damerius-Koenen later wrote, "Since 1937, there as been no trace of Leo Scharko."

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