Marianne Joachim

Marianne Joachim (born Marianna/Marianne Prager: 5 November 1921 - 4 March 1943) was a Jewish German resistance activist during the Nazi years. She was executed at Plötzensee on 4 March 1943 following an arson attack the previous summer on the party propaganda department's (ironically named) "Soviet Paradise" exhibition in Berlin's "Lustgarten" pleasure park. Life Marianne Prager grew up in Berlin. Georg Prager, her father, was a building worker. After successfully completing her schooling she trained as a child carer at the Jewish orphanage in the city centre (Gipsstraße). In Summer 1940 she was forced to give up this profession, however, when she was required by the authorities to relocate to Rathenow where she became a forced labourer in the agriculture sector. Marianne Prager married Heinz Joachim on 22 August 1941. Both Marianne's parents had been classified by the authorities as Jewish. Her newly acquired father in law was also identified as Jewish although her new mother in law was not. Nevertheless, at the time of their marriage Heinz was also a forced labourer, in his case in the "Jews department" at a Siemens plant in Berlin-Spandau. Marianne Joachim's own forced labour regime had by this time brought her back to Berlin where she was working in Berlin-Wittenau at the Alfred Teves plant which, before the war, had produced car parts. One of Heinz Joachim's co-workers in the "Jews department" at Siemens was the electrician Herbert Baum. At around the time of their marriage Heinz and Marianne Joachim became members of what came to be known as the Baum group, a circle of forced labourers living in Berlin. Sources comment on how young most of the group members were. Most were Jewish and politically inclined towards leftwing politics. Some members were living "underground" - unregistered with any town hall - in order to make it harder for the authorities to track them. The Joachims shared a small apartment beside the Rykestraße in the Prenzlauer Berg quarter, which was frequently used for meetings by the "Prenzlauer Berg Antifascist Group" ("Antifaschistischen Gruppe im Prenzlauer Berg Berlin" / AGiP) - a name by which Baum's group identified itself. Although discussion topics ranged widely, one of the things that the friends discussed with increasing intensity was how they might undermine the Nazi government.