Helga Rath was a German woman who was the sister-in-law and lover of policeman Gereon Rath.
Biography[]
Helga Schwarzbach was born in Cologne, German Empire, and she was lovers with Gereon Rath before going on to marry Gereon's brother Anno. Gereon and Helga carried on their affair even during Helga's marriage to Anno, and Helga gave birth to a son, Moritz Rath, who was officially Anno's, but who may have been the son of Gereon. Anno went missing in November 1918 during World War I, and Rath received financial aid from the philanthropist Annemarie Nyssen and her family as a war widow. In 1929, after Anno was declared officially dead, Helga brought Moritz with her to Berlin to join Gereon, who was working for the Berlin Police. Helga and Gereon rekindled their relationship in spite of Moritz's opposition, as he had been aware of their affair for years and held out faith that his father was still alive, and Gereon agreed to Helga's proposition to restart their lives together in Berlin. While her husband went after the Black Reichswehr, which was financially supported by the Nyssen family, Helga's views on the Nyssen family changed. At a speaking event hosted by Nyssen AG for war widows, Rath changed the tone of her planned speech to criticize the Nyssens for making the weapons that caused the war, and said that, while she was grateful for Nyssen AG's help, she hated their business. Alfred Nyssen invited Rath to lunch to talk about her conflicted views, and she came to develop a secretive relationship with Alfred as her relationship with Gereon deteriorated. Eventually, she and Moritz moved into a luxurious apartment in a Berlin hotel that Alfred put at her disposal.
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