Olga Brandt-Knack

Olga Brandt-Knack was a Hamburg dancer, choreographer and dance teacher. She was also politically engaged, having joined the Social Democratic Party in 1918. Her career at the Hamburg State Opera was abruptly terminated in 1933 after the new government decided she was "politically unreliable". During the ensuing twelve years she was kept under surveillance by the security services and temporarily arrested by them. She supported herself during this period by working as an appointments clerk in the medical sector. After 1945, by which time she was aged 60, she rejoined the Social Democratic Party and turned to city politics, serving between 1946 and 1953 as a high-profile member of the "Hamburgische Bürgerschaft" .