Martin Hoop - Life

Life

Hoop was born in Lägerdorf northwest of Hamburg. His father was the cottager and painter Johann Martin Hoop (1864–1939). His mother was Catharine Wilhelmine Augusta née Paulsen (1863–1962). Martin was the second oldest of six brothers and a sister - Heinrich, Johannes, Wilhelm, Helene, Max (died in infancy), Walter, Bernhard. After elementary school, Martin Hoop undertook an apprenticeship as electrician in Hamburg. During his apprenticeship, he joined a trade union and became a member of a workers' singing group. After his apprenticeship, he traveled. During World War I he served in heavy artillery, then trained as radio operator and served on the Western Front.

At the end of the war Hoop went to Bautzen where on December 28, 1918 he married Anna Elizabeth Frieda Holtsch. In Bautzen he and his wife joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD). After establishment of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), he became a member of the local Bautzen chapter, in which he served as chairman, as well as member of the KPD of the District of Bautzen. In 1924 he was elected to the Bautzen Town Council, as well as became chairman of the Red Front Fighter Federation in Bautzen. At the end of 1926 he was appointed Secretary of the KPD in east Saxony and moved to Dresden, where he and his wife resided in the Dresden city-district Plauen at Hegerstrasse 10.

The marriage with Frieda remained childless. After divorce (March 27, 1931), Hoop became Secretary of the KPD in the district of Zwickau. In this capacity he was active in organizing protests and demonstrations in opposition to the impending seizure of power by the National Socialist German Workers Party, as well as preparing for undercover work for the KPD. In early 1933, under the pseudonym 'Peter', Hoop conducted undercover work in Chemnitz.