Hedda Zinner

Hedda Erpenbeck-Zinner
1966, Hedda Zinner (middle)
Born	Hedda Zinner (1905-05-20)May 20, 1905 Lemberg
Died	January 7, 1994(1994-01-07) (aged 88) Berlin
Pen name	Elisabeth Frank, Hannchen Lobesam, Hedda
Spouse	Fritz Erpenbeck

Hedda Zinner, or Hedda Erpenbeck-Zinner (20 May 1905 – 7 January 1994) was a German political writer, actress, comedienne, journalist and radio director.

Biography

Hedda Zinner was born in Lemberg on the 20th of May, 1905. She attended the Acting Academy there from 1923 to 1925. Zinner began working as an actress but her interest in the workers' movement led her to move to Berlin and, in 1929, join the Communist Party of Germany. She became a journalist for left-wing journals. When Hitler came to power, she moved to Vienna and then Prague, where she founded the cabaret Studio 34 in 1934. In 1935 she emigrated to Moscow. After the second world war she settled in East Berlin.

She also wrote under the pseudonym Elisabeth Frank.

Works

• Nur eine Frau [Only a Woman] (1954). A novel about the life of Louise Otto-Peters.
• Ahnen und Erben [Ancestors and Inheritors] (1968). Vol. 1 of her autobiography.
• Die Schwestern [Sisters] (1970). Vol. 2 of her autobiography.

See Bloomsbury Guide to Women's Literature