Husemann trained as a tailor and entered the
KJVD in 1928, aged 15. In 1931, she was a member of the
KPD. In the classic film
Kuhle Wampe of
Slatan Dudow she played "Gerda", one of the two female leads. The experience she had as an actress progressed in 1935 with her screenplay for the short feature film
Fünf Personen suchen Anschluß" (Five People Seeking Connection). The film was shot under the direction of
Jürgen von Alten in the Berlin department store
KaDeWe. In the same year she was interrogated for the first time by the
Gestapo. In November 1936, she was arrested and the following March to June 1937 detained at the
Moringen concentration camp in
Vorbeugehäftling - euphemistically known as protective custody. She was released, after being seen by
Heinrich Himmler who thought she
looked too Aryan. Together with her husband
Walter Husemann, she was then active in the anti-fascist
Red Orchestra of
Harro Schulze-Boysen. Often the group met unobserved by the Gestapo at . She had particularly intensive contacts with Gerhard and , who participated actively in the
Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein Organization of the resistance against Nazism. On 19 September 1942, she was arrested again and sentenced to four years in prison in January 1943 by the
Reichskriegsgericht. In 1945, she was freed from the women's penitentiary in Leipzig by the Red Army. After the war, she worked in the
Communist Party of Germany (KPD) district headquarters in
East Berlin. After her remarriage, to
Hans Jendretzky, she took the name Marta Jendretzky. == Sources ==