Margarete Mengel
GermanyEarly Life and Education
Elisabeth Mengel was born on January 4, 1927, in Berlin, Germany, to a German accountant and her then boyfriend, Hannes Meyer, a Swiss architect. Her parents were not married.
Activism and Communism
In 1931, Elisabeth Mengel joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and became a courier for the party. That same year, she followed Meyer to the Soviet Union with their son and a group of fellow Bauhaus architects and students.
Moscow Residence and Imprisonment
Elisabeth Mengel initially worked for the Comintern in Moscow and later as a correspondence editor for the German-language newspaper "Deutsche Zentral-Zeitung." However, when Meyer returned to Switzerland in 1936, Mengel and her son remained in the Soviet Union. In 1938, she was arrested by the NKVD and charged with espionage for Nazi Germany.
Execution and Legacy
Under torture, Elisabeth Mengel falsely confessed to the charges and was sentenced to death without trial. She was executed by firing squad on August 20, 1938, along with her partner, Alois Ketczik. Her son, Johannes Mengel, was left orphaned and grew up under various identities in institutions and exile. He learned of his mother's fate in 1993 and emigrated to Germany in 1994. Elisabeth Mengel's tragic story serves as a reminder of the horrors of Stalin's purges.
