Marianne Baum

Marianne Baum (9 February, 1912 – 18 August, 1942) was a German communist and anti-Nazi. She was Jewish and she was executed after an attack on a propaganda show in Berlin.

Marianne Baum
Herbert Baum and Marianne circled in white. Olga Benario is circled in gray
Born
Marianne Cohn

9 February, 1912
Saarburg
Died18 August, 1942
Berlin-Plötzensee
Cause of deathGuillotine
NationalityGermany
Known forAnti-Nazi
Political partyCommunist
Spouse(s)Herbert Baum

Life

Baum was born in Saarburg in 1912. Her brother was Lothar Cohn who also became a communist activist.

In 1927, aged 14 she was attending political groups where she met Herbert Baum.[1] She married Herbert and they formed the "Gruppe Herbert Baum" in Berlin. This was a communist Jewish resistance group which planned a successful attack on an exhibition titled "Soviet Paradise". The exhibition was an anti-Communist propaganda exhibition in Berlin. The attack on 18 May 1942 annoyed the highest members of the Nazi Party and many members were arrested.

Marianne Baum and eight fellow activists were sentenced to death because of their "treason".[2] They were guillotined on 18 August 1942 at the Berlin-Plötzensee penitentiary.[3]

Legacy

There is a plaque in the Weißensee Cemetery in Berlin commemorating the Herbert Baum Group and there is also a street near the cemetery named Herbert-Baum-Straße. In Berlin's Lustgarten a monument designed by Jürgen Raue was erected in 1981 commemorating the 1942 attack. While the East German government, which established these memorials, emphasized Baum's allegiance to Communism, other historians (as well as veterans of the group) have noted the group's multiple political and cultural influences and the significance of the Baum group as an example of Jewish resistance to Nazism.

References
  1. https://libcom.org/files/TheHerbertBaumGroupBlog.pdf
  2. Brothers, Eric (2014). "New Findings on the Herbert Baum Group" (PDF). Retrieved 18 August 2018.
  3. Cox, John M. (2009). Circles of resistance: Jewish, leftist, and youth dissidence in Nazi Germany. Peter Lang. ISBN 978-1-4331-0557-9.
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