Hedda Zinner

Hedda Zinner, or Hedda Erpenbeck-Zinner (20 May 1904 – 1 July 1994), was a German political writer, actress, comedian, journalist and radio director.

Hedda Zinner
Zinner in Berlin, 1956
Born	Hedda Zinner (1905-05-20)20 May 1905 Lviv (then Lemberg), Austria-Hungary
Died	1 July 1994(1994-07-01) (aged 90) Berlin, Germany
Pen name	Elisabeth Frank, Hannchen Lobesam, Hedda
Language	German
Nationality	German
Spouse	Fritz Erpenbeck

Biography

Hedda Zinner was born in Lviv (then known as Lemberg) on 20 May 1904. 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.^[1] In 1980, Zinner was awarded the Order of Karl Marx.^[2]

Zinner also wrote under the pseudonym Elisabeth Frank. Her granddaughter is the writer Jenny Erpenbeck.

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.