Helmut Damerius

Helmut Damerius (December 16, 1905 – September 29, 1985) was a German communist and a member of the Left Column, an agitprop theater group. As the Nazi Party gained in strength, he went into exile in Moscow, only to be arrested in the so-called Hitler Youth Conspiracy and sentenced to a long term in a Soviet prison. After his prison sentence, he was banished to Kazakhstan and was not permitted to move elsewhere. In 1956, he received permission to move to East Germany, where he stayed until his death.

Damerius was born and raised in Berlin-Wedding. His mother was a florist and his father a gardener. After attending a volksschule, he apprenticed at a florist. He then worked at an upholstery workshop, working first as an errand boy and other jobs, and from 1924 to 1929, as a painter. He began getting interested in politics through involvement with the Lankwitz Friends of Nature. In 1922, already an actor, he married Emma Zadach and joined the Anarcho-Syndicalist Youth of Germany, a political party that was in existence from 1920 to 1933.

In 1923, Damerius joined the Communist Party (German: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, or KPD) and he and his wife had a baby, who died when a small child. They were divorced in 1927. In 1928, he was a member of the agitprop theater group Rote Blusen, led by Arthur Pieck. In 1929, he was a founding member of the Left Column and became its leader. The troupe worked in support of the Workers International Relief (WIR). Their advertising efforts for the WIR resulted in 16,000 new members for the WIR, which then rewarded the Left Column with a five-week tour in the Soviet Union. Damerius took this opportunity to emigrate to the Soviet Union.

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