HERRMANN, LISELOTTE (1909–1938). A communist spy ex-
ecuted by the Nazis who became a celebrated figure in the Ger-
man Democratic Republic (GDR). Liselotte Herrmann (nicknamed
“Lilo”) was born in Berlin on 23 June 1909, the daughter of an engi-
neer. She studied chemistry at the Technical College in Stuttgart and
then biology at the University of Berlin. She was a member of two
communist youth groups before joining the Kommunistische Partei
Deutschlands (KPD) in 1931. In July 1933, approximately 100 Berlin
students including Herrmann received a notice of dismissal for hav-
ing signed an anti-Nazi petition in defense of “democratic rights and
freedoms.” In December, her husband and fellow communist, Fritz
Rau, was killed during a Gestapo interrogation.
Following the birth of her son, Herrmann returned to Stuttgart in
1934 to work in her father’s engineering firm as a shorthand typist.
Having already established contact with the KPD’s secret military
section before leaving Berlin, she became a technical assistant to
Stefan Lovasz, the head of the illegal apparatus in Württemberg. In
one instance, information collected by Artur Görlitz about armament
production at the Dornier-Works in Friedrichshafen and the construc-
tion of an underground munitions factory near Celle was given to
Herrmann, who conveyed it to a KPD Instrukteur in Switzerland.
Her betrayal by other agents led to her arrest and detention in
December 1935. In 1937, a Stuttgart court found Herrmann guilty
of treason and imposed the death sentence. Despite protests from
abroad, she was executed along with Lovasz and Görlitz on 20 June
1938 at Plötzensee Prison. In the postwar period, the GDR, without
referring to her espionage career, made Herrmann the object of wide-
spread veneration. In addition to circulating countless reproductions
of her and her young son, authorities affixed her name to streets,
schools, and other facilities, many of which were renamed following
the 1990 reunification.
HERRNSTADT, RUDOLF (1903–1966). A gifted communist jour-
nalist and Soviet spy, Rudolf Herrnstadt was born in Gleiwitz (now
Gliwice, Poland) on 18 March 1903, the son of a Jewish lawyer. In
1922, he broke off his legal studies at Berlin and Heidelberg to be-
come a professional journalist and later a member of the Kommunis-
tische Partei Deutschlands. In 1929, during his posting in Prague as
184 • HERRMANN, LISELOTTE