Ilse Stephan
Ilse Stephan | |
|---|---|
| Head of the General Department Working Group of the Central Committee | |
| In office 16 April 1981 – 19 June 1984 | |
| Secretary | |
| Preceded by | Werner Albrecht |
| Succeeded by | Position abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Ilse Korth 8 May 1931 Hamburg, Weimar Republic (now Germany) |
| Died | 25 June 1984 (aged 53) |
| Cause of death | Suicide by hanging |
| Political party | Socialist Unity Party (1956–1984) |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupation |
|
Ilse Stephan (née Korth; 8 May 1931 – 25 June 1984) was a German interpreter and party functionary of the Socialist Unity Party (SED).
Stephan, whose stepfather was a communist functionary, emigrated to the Soviet Union after Adolf Hitler's rise to power. Her stepfather became a victim of the Great Purge and she was deported to the Kazakh SSR.
She returned to East Germany in 1955, where she became an interpreter and party functionary for the Central Committee of the SED. One of only a handful of women in the SED's nomenklatura, Stephan rose to head the Central Committee's General Department Working Group in 1981.
Stephan was fired in 1984 after making critical remarks regarding tensions between the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the SED and committed suicide shortly thereafter.