Hedda Zinner, or Hedda Erpenbeck-Zinner (20 May 1905 - 7 January 1994) was a German political writer.

Biography

Born in Lemberg

Lviv

Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...

, Zinner began working as an actress but her interest in the workers' movement led her to move to Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 and, in 1929, join the Communist Party. She became a journalist for left-wing journals. When Hitler came to power, she moved to Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 and then Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

, where she founded the cabaret Studio 34 in 1934. In 1935 she emigrated to Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

. 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
  Louise Otto-Peters
  Louise Otto-Peters was a German writer, feminist, poet, journalist, and women's rights movement activist. She often wrote under the pseudonym of Otto Stern. She is widely acknowledged as the founder of the organized German women's movement.-Life:Louise Otto-Peters was the daughter of a...
  
  .
• 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