Inge Meysel (1910-2004) Photo: picture-alliance / ZB | Klaus Franke
From Hildburg Bruns
The “mother of the nation” should also be on the street sign. Folk actress Inge Meysel (1910-2004) will have a home on a nameless street.
Although only 32 of the 1000 residents voted in favor of a postcard campaign (206 against), the Greens in the district pull through the honor. Residents can also keep their old addresses on the streets to the east (Pariser Kommune, Franz-mehring-Platz).
Meysel was born in Rixdorf, but studied at the Ludwig Hoffmann elementary school after the family moved and took ballet lessons at Strausberger Platz. As a half-Jew, she was baptized in the Lazarus Church after the Nazis banned her from performing.
Clara Herrmann (38), Mayor of the Greens, also justified the award with Meysel’s political work: In 1925 she spoke out against the death penalty, and throughout her life she campaigned for the women’s movement and the abolition of paragraph 218 (abortion) as well as for the Gay rights in the fight against AIDS.
Meysel also got involved in Berlin politics: in the early 1980s, she and other celebrities opposed the eviction of squats and even took on a sponsorship in Kreuzberg.
And in 1981, Meysel rejected the Federal Cross of Merit on the grounds that it was not worth a medal “that someone has lived their life decently.” At least it now appears on a street sign in the capital – as it did in Ingolstadt (Bavaria).