Eva Busch's Real Name: Eva Senta Elisabeth Zimmermann

Quick answer: Eva Busch was born Eva Senta Elisabeth Zimmermann on May 22, 1912, in Berlin. After her mother's marriage she was known as Eva Klein; marrying actor-singer Ernst Busch in 1932 gave her the name Eva Busch, which she kept as her professional identity. She died in Munich on July 20, 2001 (Fembio; Die Welt; Munzinger / encyclopedia summaries).

Berlin cabaret and Ernst Busch

Trained in piano, violin and voice — first by her mother, opera singer Emmy Zimmermann — she performed at Berlin's Volksbühne and in political cabaret, often alongside Ernst Busch, singing songs with texts by Brecht, Mehring and Tucholsky. Their 1932 marriage also gave the previously stateless (because of illegitimacy) singer German nationality. Both opposed the rising Nazi movement (Fembio biography; Munzinger).

Exile, internment and Ravensbrück

After the Nazis took power in 1933, Ernst fled imminent arrest; Eva followed into Dutch and later French exile, performing on radio and with Erika Mann's Pfeffermühle troupe. The couple divorced by about 1938 while remaining connected. In 1940 French authorities interned her at Gurs as an enemy alien; she escaped and worked undercover in occupied Paris until the Gestapo arrested her in 1942. After Berlin imprisonment she was sent to the women's concentration camp Ravensbrück as a political prisoner. She survived forced labor and solitary punishment; she was released before the war's end after interventions tied to her mother's Wagner-world connections and the popularity of her recordings among German troops — accounts differ on which factor mattered most (Junge Welt interview excerpts; Fembio; Die Welt obituaries). This page does not detail camp atrocities beyond what is needed to understand her biography.

Paris chanson and later years

Stateless again, she returned to Paris in late 1945, rebuilt a chanson career, and partnered for decades with journalist and Resistance figure George Sinclair until his 1984 death. She recorded, toured and even cut sides connected with Bing Crosby for U.S. audiences. In 1984 she moved to Munich, where she died in 2001. German obituaries remembered her as a bridge between Weimar cabaret, antifascist exile and French chanson (Die Welt).