Anna Götze was born on April 6th 1875. She was a member of the Social Democratic Party from 1897 up to 1917 and with the end of the war and the Revolution was one of the founders of the Spartakusbund. At the beginning of the 1920s she moved to a clear anarchist position and joined the FAUD. She worked as a folder in the printing industry.
She had three children born out of wedlock. Her son Ferdinand Götze, known as Nante, and her daughter Irma were also active in the FAUD, whilst her other son Waldemar was a militant in the KPD (the official German Communist Party). This led to blazing rows in the family, although Waldemar was later ready to cooperate with the rest of the family in underground work.
Anna had an emancipated approach to sexuality. The anarchist Karl Brauner was to testify how impressed he was by the way Anna was able to talk about sexual matters to her daughter.
After the rise of Hitler Anna was active in the underground FAUD networks. Her apartment in Leipzig was one of the centres of these networks.
She was arrested for the first time in 1935 and then again on October 1, 1937. She was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment on April 12th 1938, which she served in Waldheim jail. She was then imprisoned in the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where her daughter Irma was also held. They both managed to escape from there when the Nazis began the death march of prisoners from there in April 1945.
Her son Waldemar managed to escape to the Soviet Union, and he was most likely murdered there by the Stalinists.
After the war Anna and indeed her daughter Irma joined the SED (East German communist party) as did many other surviving Leipzig FAUD members like Karl Brauner, Richard Theide and Paul Helberg.
She died on 18th July1958.
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