Beate Ulbricht
Beate Ulbricht (also known as Beate Matteoli; 6 May 1944 – 5/6 December 1991)[1] was the adopted daughter of First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of the GDR Walter Ulbricht and his wife Lotte.
Biography
Ulbricht was born Mariya Pestunova in 1944 in Leipzig in what was then the Greater German Reich. Her birth mother was a Ukrainian forced laborer; the identity of her father was unknown. In summer 1944, shortly after Ulbricht's birth, her mother died in an air raid bombing. Ulbricht was sent to an orphanage, whereupon she was adopted for a short time before her foster mother decided to return her.[2] In January 1946, she was adopted a second time by Walter Ulbricht, then a member of the Landtag of Saxony, and his partner Lotte.[1] It was the second attempt at adoption for the couple,[3] who wanted children, but were unable to have them on their own because prior illnesses left Lotte Ulbricht unable to conceive.[4] Beate Ulbricht's birth parentage was kept secret from the public until after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Because of Soviet laws which prevented children born to Soviet citizens from being adopted by foreign parents, Ulbricht's adoption was not formally approved until August 26, 1950, with the caveat that she could not renounce Soviet citizenship in favor of East German citizenship.[4]
At age 2, Ulbricht suffered from health problems in her infancy, but she managed to overcome them and continue her primary school education in Berlin. In 1954, she enrolled at the Russian school on Kissingenstraße in Pankow, where her status made her a target of bullying from her fellow students. At the age of 15, her adoptive parents, now legally married, sent her to Leningrad for high school. There she studied history and Russian at the Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute.[1] In 1962, she began a romantic relationship with Ivanko Matteoli, the son of an Italian Communist Party functionary. The two married over her parents' objections in Pankow in October 1963, thereafter dropping out of her studies. After the birth of Ulbricht's daughter in February 1965, she expressed her desire to return to Leningrad in order to avoid continued rejection and hostility from her parents. After her husband left for the Soviet Union to prepare the move, their plans were thwarted when the East German government confiscated her passport. In 1967, Ulricht consented to her parents' wishes and divorced her husband, whereupon her passport was returned the following day. She flew to Leningrad to find her ex-husband, but was unsuccessful in locating him.[5] While in the Soviet Union, she met a former classmate, Yuri Polkovnikov, whom she married in March 1968. In January 1969 she gave birth to a son and resumed her studies. Ulbricht was subjected to violence from her husband and became an alcoholic as a result.[1]
After the death of Ulbricht's father in 1973, she divorced Polkovnikov and returned to East Germany. There she lived with her two children in social circumstances made difficult by her estrangement from her parents. At the end of the 1970s, the authorities removed her children from her custody.[1]
Between 27 August – 7 September 1991, Ulricht gave an 11-part interview to the tabloid Super!, wherein she discussed personal details about her life in the Ulbricht family.[6]
Ulbricht was murdered in her Lichtenberg apartment during the night of 5/6 December 1991. Her murder remains unsolved.[1]
Relationship with adoptive parents
Upon Ulbricht's adoption, she was expected to play her part as a member of the model East German socialist family. Lotte Ulbricht wrote to adoption authorities that she aspired to raise her daughter into a "valuable member of the new Germany."[2] According to her housekeeper, "[she] wanted above all for [Beate Ulbricht] to be the best."[7] Public and private pressures became increasingly burdensome to her as she got older. When in her teenage years she began to rebel against her parents, she was punished by being sent to study in the Soviet Union.[8]
After Ulbricht wed her first husband, she was subjected to a campaign of harassment by East German authorities. Her parents revoked her privileges, cut off further contact, and forced her to work as a solderer at the VEB Stern-Radio plant in Berlin. She learned after her father's death that she had been disinherited from his will.[1]
Ulbricht spoke warmly about her adoptive father, who had treated her well and doted upon her. But she referred to her mother as "the hag," calling her "cold-hearted and egotistic." According to her, Walter Ulbricht married Lotte on the orders of Stalin.[9]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g Geipel, Ines (July 24, 2009). "Wie Ulbrichts Adoptivtochter dem Alkohol verfiel". Die Welt (in German). Archived from the original on December 20, 2021. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
{{cite news}}:|archive-date=/|archive-url=timestamp mismatch; December 21, 2021 suggested (help) - ^ a b Warnat, Grit (July 31, 2015). "Wie Lotte Ulbricht Mutter wurde". Volksstimme (in German). Archived from the original on December 20, 2021. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
{{cite news}}:|archive-date=/|archive-url=timestamp mismatch; December 21, 2021 suggested (help) - ^ Seng, Marco (October 10, 2015). "Papa Walter brachte Schokolade mit". Nordwest-Zeitung (in German). Archived from the original on December 20, 2021. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
{{cite news}}:|archive-date=/|archive-url=timestamp mismatch; December 21, 2021 suggested (help) - ^ a b Neef, Christian (August 22, 2004). "Wertvolles Menschlein". Der Spiegel (in German). Archived from the original on December 20, 2021. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
{{cite news}}:|archive-date=/|archive-url=timestamp mismatch; December 21, 2021 suggested (help) - ^ "Die kleine Bildgeschichte". Welt am Sonntag (in German). May 29, 2011.
- ^ Burnett, Simon (2007). Ghost Strasse: Germany's East Trapped Between Past and Present. Montreal: Black Rose Books. p. 10. ISBN 1551642913.
- ^ Burnett 2007, p. 10.
- ^ "Ulbrichts Adoptivtochter: Die Tragik der Beate Matteoli". MDR.de (in German). November 26, 2021. Archived from the original on December 20, 2021. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
{{cite news}}:|archive-date=/|archive-url=timestamp mismatch; December 21, 2021 suggested (help) - ^ Burnett 2007, p. 7.