Alice Wosikowski (born Alice Ludwig: 18 October 1886 – 4 July 1949) was a German politician (SPD, KPD) who became a member of the Hamburg Parliament between 1927 and 1933. After 1933 she became a resistance activist: much of her life during the twelve Nazi years was spent in government detention institutions.
Life
Alice Ludwig was born the youngest of four recorded siblings in Danzig in West Prussia. Her father was a master tailor. After leaving the local school she undertook a two-year traineeship for work as a Kindergarten teacher, and this is the profession she was still following in 1907 when she married Wilhelm Wosikowski, described variously as a machinist and a port worker. He was also a committed trades unionist and Social Democrat. Alice was also a party member. Their first child, Eberhard, was born in 1908; Irene, their daughter, was born two years later. However, because of his trades union involvement Wilhelm Wosikowski found it increasingly difficult to find work in Danzig. He received what one source identifies as "a reprimand" in 1911: later that year the little family relocated to Kiel, still on Germany's northern coast, but far to the west of Danzig.
In July 1914 war was declared and Wilhelm Wosikowski was conscripted into the army. He was killed in France a few months later, in October. The small was pension Alice received was not sufficient for the family's needs and she needed to work. However, the children were still small, so she was initially restricted to work that could be done at home. She also engaged in political women's and youth work. She was employed between 1915 and 1921 in welfare work for the municipality. At some point during 1921 she married her late husband's brother or cousin (sources differ). It was also in 1921 that she moved with her children to Hamburg.
In Hamburg Alice Wosikowski became, like her new husband, a member of the recently launched Communist Party ("Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands" / KPD). Her new husband's work as a leading bargeman meant that he was relatively well paid: Alice no longer needed to work in order to survive. Managing their family home in the "Seumestrasse" ("Seume Street") was less than a full-time occupation, however, and she found time and energy for politics. She headed up the women's section in the District Leadership Team ("Bezirksleitung") of the party's important "Wasserkante" district (which included Hamburg). From 1927 till its formal dissolution in 1929/30 Alice Wosikowski served in succession to Maria Grünert as leader of the Hamburg district group of the Red Women's and Girl's League ("Rote Frauen und Mädchenbund" / RFMB) which was the women's version of the quasi-military Red Front Fighters, operating under the auspices of the Communist Party. The objective was to awaken political awareness, on behalf of the party, among working women. Principal demands included equal workplace treatment for women and men, prevention of mass unemployment and the abolition of the country's restrictive abortion laws. Along with these activities, between 1927 and 1933 Wosikowski sat as a Communist member of the Hamburg Parliament ("Bürgerschaft") where she took a lead on issues concerning working women. She was a particularly determined advocate on behalf of women working in the city's important fish processing industry.
Her second husband, who during the later 1920s had been working for the Hamburger Volkszeitung (communist newspaper), died in 1930 and Alice Wosikowski returned to paid employment. By the end of 1930 she was herself working for the Hamburger Volkszeitung, at this stage still in a relatively lowly capacity in the accounts department. She stayed with the newspaper till 1933 when it was closed down.