Mother and daughter move to downtown Berlin near Potsdamer Platz in 1924. A childhood friend is the later composer and music director Heinz Struve (1925-2015), who wrote the autobiography Im Dschungel - zwischen Nazis und Stalinisten in 2013.

1926 Beginning of lifelong friendship with Marie-Luise Krüger (née Bieder).

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After Weimar democracy fended off attempts to overthrow it from the left and right, a period of relative political and economic stability followed in the years from 1924 to 1929. It is characterized by a variety of artistic, cultural and scientific achievements. However, the election of Paul von Hindenburg as Reich president in 1925 gives the anti-democratic forces the chance to implement a return to authoritarian conditions legally, with the aid of the presidential elements of the Reich constitution.

This period is characterized by a veritable explosion of art and culture, an ecstatic new attitude to life and new forms of mass culture. The starting point for the "Roaring Twenties" was the USA. Jazz music comes from there, and in 1927 the first sound film is made in the USA. Josephine Baker is the first African-American world star. On January 14, 1926, Baker performs in Berlin for the first time. Her dance performances, in which she mostly appears scantily clad, cause a great stir and result in bans on her appearances in Munich and Vienna, among other places.

The year 1929 marks the end of a period characterized by political stability and economic prosperity. As a result of "Black Friday" with the collapse of the New York Stock Exchange, the Great Depression is triggered and increased foreign capital is withdrawn from Germany.

On September 14, 1930, the Reichstag elections are held. The NSDAP, which had played only a modest role for a long time, finally achieves considerable success in regional elections.

The year 1931 brings further successes for the NSDAP in all regional elections. The party now feels strong enough to seek an open exchange of blows with the traditional right.

In February 1932, the private efforts of the Austrian Adolf Hitler are successful. He is granted German citizenship. After the Reichstag elections, the NSDAP is the strongest faction for the first time. Changes of great magnitude are in the offing in Germany.

On January 30, 1933, Hitler became Reich Chancellor. As early as February 1, 1933, he dissolved the Reichstag and called new elections for March 5, the third Reichstag elections in seven months. Within a few months, his regime eliminates the separation of powers, pluralistic democracy, federalism and the rule of law with terror, emergency decrees, the Enabling Act, Gleichschaltung laws, bans on organizations and parties. Political opponents are imprisoned in concentration camps, tortured and murdered.

In 1934, Hitler had political opponents and potential rivals in his own ranks murdered in connection with the "Röhm Putsch." He uses Hindenburg's death in August 1934 to have the office of Reich President combined with that of Reich Chancellor, and from then on he rules as Führer and Reich Chancellor.

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Begins studying free graphic art and painting at the Staatliche Hochschule für bildende Künste Berlin (until 1944) with professors Gerhard Ulrich, Kurt Wehlte, Wilhelm Tank, Hermann Franke and Carl Michel. During her studies she created nude and portrait drawings, as well as her first works with workers' motifs and illustrations.

During the war years she observes deportations of people persecuted by the Nazi dictatorship.

During her studies, she worked from 1941 to 1944 in the Kaskeline animated film studios of Wolfgang Kaskeline (1892-1973). The so-called "UFA Kaskeline" is the only Jewish director still working in Germany at this time. Kaskeline also hid persecuted people in his studios in Neubabelsberg to protect them from the Gestapo. Among them were two of Ruth's fellow students and friends who worked for Kaskeline: Uta von Kardorff, née von Witzleben, and Lilo von der Horst, who repeatedly faced interrogation by the Gestapo.

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Siege of Leningrad from September 1941 to January 1944 by the German Wehrmacht. Over a million civilians starved and froze to death.

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She meets her fellow student Annemarie Stübler (née Kranz), whom she portrays several times. Stübler lives in the GDR after the war. Both remain in close contact.

She spends the summer of 1943 with the Reich Labor Service near Lauenburg, Pomerania (today: Lębork/Poland), cutting peat. Later she will describe this time as "decidedly enriching."

She marries fellow student Eduard Alfred Gustav Busse (1914-2003) from Bielefeld, who has to return to the front immediately after the marriage.

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After ten days of deliberation, the Western Allies announce the official war aims to the press for the first time: "Unconditional surrender of Germany, Italy and Japan". They also decide to step up air raids on German cities.

At the end of January, Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrenders with the German units trapped in the Southern Cauldron in the Battle of Stalingrad. German schoolchildren aged 15 and over are drafted into military service as flak helpers. In February, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels calls for "total war" in a speech at the Berlin Sports Palace.

Sophie and Hans Scholl as well as their friend Christoph Probst are sentenced to death by guillotine in February by the People's Court under the "blood judge" Roland Freisler as members of the resistance group White Rose for "decomposition of military strength", "favoring the enemy" and "preparation for high treason".

On the night of March 1 to 2, the first major air raid on Berlin takes place.

In April, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising begins.

In November, the air battle for Berlin begins.

On February 3, it experienced the worst air raid on Berlin. On May 8, the surrender takes place. Berlin-Karlshorst becomes a restricted area by the Soviet army. She works briefly as a press artist for the Berliner Zeitung, published by the Soviet occupying forces. With a special permit, she is able to save part of her work from her apartment at Rheingoldstrasse 32 in just a few hours. She moves to Berlin-Lichtenrade.

Meets the physician Dr. Fritz Kohs, whose type is recognizable again and again in several of her compositions. A long lasting friendship develops.

In Lichtenrade she takes over the management of a youth center founded by the Soviet occupation forces (later Lortzingclub) and from July works as a drawing teacher at the Ulrich-von-Hutten-Gymnasium in Lichtenrade. She produces her first watercolor drawings, including Boys' Portraits and Studio Corner (Evening).

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The liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp by the Red Army takes place on January 27.

The old city of Dresden is largely destroyed in air raids by the Royal Air Force and US Air Force from February 13-15, 1945, just a few months before the end of World War II. Some 25,000 people die.

Germany surrenders at Reims and Karlshorst on May 8 and 9.

Birth of son Thomas Christian Busse.

Start of her career as an illustrator, graphic artist and freelance painter. She creates illustrations for newspapers and magazines such as the left-leaning Freie Presse (1949-1953) and Magazin der Hausfrau (1949-1954). She designs a number of children's and youth books, as well as fiction, such as works by Alfred Döblin and Oscar Wilde.

Connection with the Bielefeld booksellers Erich Vogel (1906-1956) and Otto Fischer (1907-1995) as well as the lawyer Albert Daltrop (1886-1977), who returned from the concentration camp Theresienstadt.

First public exhibition participation with ink drawings at the exhibition Deutsches Buchschaffen in Bielefeld. She joins the Landesberufsverband Bildender Künstler Nordrhein-Westfalen and participates in numerous group exhibitions until 1952.

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In the extremely cold hunger winter of 1946/47, which was accompanied by a cold spell, there was a shortage of food, heating material and much else.

In the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ), the development toward a transformation of society also continues. The communist-oriented SED is the dominant force in the country. In 1947, an important course is also set in the economic field; for example, the German Economic Commission is established, which centrally controls economic life in the SBZ from East Berlin. In the meantime, economic life in Germany's western zones was being rebuilt on a capitalist basis, making a unified economic policy for Germany increasingly impossible. Offers by the U.S. to use Marshall Plan aid to support Eastern European states and the SBZ are interpreted by the Soviet Union as Western propaganda.

The summer becomes extremely hot (summer of the century); there are crop failures. Many people die from malnutrition and contagious diseases.

Another very cold winter in 1947/48 further aggravates the situation of the people.

In the years 1947 to 1948 she is heavily involved in the cultural and theater scene. The actor Hans Wintrath (1905-1965) becomes her most important companion and later a close friend, godfather to her son Thomas and the Baumgarte family.

She met the Swedish entrepreneur Carl Erik Pihl (1914-1970) and traveled with him to Paris, among other places. The two became lifelong friends.

She has a brief relationship with the stage designer Johann Wenzel Minarik (1925-1999), who later works at the Munich State Opera, among other places.

She meets the entrepreneur Hans Baumgarte at his own exhibition of children's portraits and portrays his two sons from his first marriage.

From 1950 to 1953 she travels to Lake Constance several times with Hans Baumgarte.

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In 1948, the announced Marshall Plan comes into effect in the western zones of Germany. The USA provides $550 million in the form of loans and raw materials.

The Soviet Union lays claim to the entire city of Berlin, in which it had hitherto administered only one occupation zone. When the currency reform is implemented by the Western Allies that year, which applies exclusively to the western zones and the western sectors of Berlin, a blockade is set up by the Soviet occupation forces to prevent the supply of West Berlin via highways and waterways.
From then on, the Allies supply the city from the air. The Berlin blockade is an act of solidarity and at the same time a fierce power struggle in the Cold War. By the end of the year, 100,000 planes reach West Berlin.

In 1949, there is no longer any hope for a unified Germany. On May 23, the Federal Republic of Germany was founded, and on October 7, the GDR came into being. The West does not recognize the founding of the GDR as a state. Two states on German soil are not in the sense of the people and also not of the western politics. The founding of the Federal Republic is disapproved of by the Soviet Union because it violates existing treaties. The founding of the GDR, in turn, is a thorn in the side of the Western Allies.
Many people move from East to West because they find better living conditions in the West. Apart from the political circumstances, the Germans on both sides are still busy trying to eliminate the consequences of the war, renew the infrastructure and hope for the relatives still in captivity.

In 1950, the two German states were increasingly drifting apart economically and politically. Konrad Adenauer had held the office of Chancellor since 1949. In West Germany, the economy was quickly able to report successes, including the abolition of the last ration cards. While an era of Heimatfilme dawned in West Germany, the Ministry for State Security was founded in the GDR.
 

In 1951, the first post-war Richard Wagner Festival was held in Bayreuth. In terms of culture, the country experiences a shock at the beginning of the year. Hildegard Knef, the protagonist in the film "Die Sünderin" (The Sinner) enrages the public and thus begins her international career.
In the course of time, the Federal Republic is able to detach itself more and more from the dependence of the Western Allies. Denazification is primarily carried out by the American side. The West German judiciary, on the other hand, gradually punishes the crimes of Nazi perpetrators by granting amnesties. Almost 800,000 people involved in the machinations of the Nazi regime thus escape their full punishment.

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For social reasons, her husband forbids her to do illustration work for the politically left-wing Freie Presse.

In the years 1954 to 1961 she creates numerous portraits, still lifes and theater illustrations.

In 1956 Kurt Rupli, Ruth's father, brings the opera Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin to the Apollo Theater in Düsseldorf during a world tour.

First international exhibitions: Galeria Machico, Estoril / Portugal (1954), Galleries Dr. Khalili, Tehran / Iran (1957), Circolo Nautico, Alessio / Italy (1961).

From the mid-fifties annual stays on Sylt. In 1956 she traveled for the first time to Iran, further trips took her to Italy, the Canary Islands and Turkey.

Between 1957 and 1959 first trip to Johannesburg / South Africa and Egypt.

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In 1953, with the death of Joseph Stalin, the process of de-Stalinization begins in the USSR. His successor, Khrushchev, opted for a course of détente in view of the nuclear stalemate and massive domestic political problems. Meanwhile, political and economic problems in the GDR erupted in the June 17, 1953 uprising.

In 1954, Otto John, the president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, causes a scandal in the Federal Republic by going underground in the GDR. In the USA, the McCarthy era reaches its climax with the Communist Control Act of 1954.

In 1955, the period of occupation ends in Austria, the GDR and the Federal Republic; at the same time, the two German states are firmly integrated into their blocs with the founding of the Warsaw Pact and admission to NATO, respectively. Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, on his trip to Moscow, achieves the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and the return home of the last German prisoners of war.
In Montgomery, Alabama, African American Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus for a white male passenger. The ensuing "Montgomery Bus Boycott" becomes the birth of the black civil rights movement in the USA.

In 1956, Nikita Khrushchev initiates de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union. The demonstrations in Tbilisi, the Poznan Uprising and the Hungarian Uprising are all bloodily put down as a result of Soviet control of the Eastern Bloc.
The three North African states of Morocco, Tunisia and Sudan gain their independence. The rearmament of the two German states begins with the establishment of the Bundeswehr and the NVA.

The Sputnik satellite marks the beginning of the space age in 1957. At the same time, it is also an expression of the system competition between the USA and the Soviet Union, which is also reflected in the Eisenhower Doctrine. Meanwhile, the most important cornerstone of European unification is laid with the Treaties of Rome.

In 1958, the world economy experiences its first post-war recession. The Federal Republic, in the midst of the economic miracle, is only slightly affected. 1958 (or 1957) is regarded as the year in which a long crisis in the coal and steel industry begins in West Germany. In the Ruhr region, Germany's largest agglomeration with more than 10 million inhabitants, these crises become particularly visible. Worldwide, the movement for nuclear disarmament strengthens. In Germany, the "fight atomic death" movement emerges in parallel.

In 1959, the revolutionaries under Fidel Castro take power in Cuba after the escape of the dictator Batista. The superpowers USA and USSR engage in talks to weaken the confrontational course of the Cold War.

Intensive travels to the eastern Pyrenees and confrontation with the regions of the Ampurdán, burdened by the Spanish Civil War, which already shaped Alma Mahler-Werfel, Walter Benjamin and Lion Feuchtwanger during their flight from the Nazis.

1974 solo exhibition at the Chamoizzi Gallery, Lyon / France.

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Oil crisis: Starting in 1973, highways are closed on four consecutive Sundays to save fuel. The oil supply freeze is triggered by the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War between Israel and its Arab neighbors Syria and Egypt. The curtailed oil production is intended to force a revision of the "pro-Israel" policies of Western Europe and America.

In 1974, the Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research, commissioned by Der Spiegel magazine, identified an "explosion of fears" in April, but this does not only refer to the economic situation. According to Frank Biess, the new status of psychological sciences "contributes to this change just as much as new ideas of subjectivity, which assigned a higher value to feelings" and "allowed or even encouraged the open articulation of fear."

From 1980, annual stays of several months in Africa, parallel travels through Europe and repeatedly to Spain. Artistic examination of social and political changes, including 1986 after the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl. The series of pictures Wintertod (1982-1983). based on the Spanish Sketchbook pictures to the Spanish Legend and the series A la recherche du temps perdu Lebensabend I (1984), as well as Der Zweifel (1985) and Der Freund (1985).

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In the 1980s in South Africa, the oppressed black majority fights against the regime's oppression with waves of strikes, protest marches and also violent resistance such as sabotage and bombings. International sanctions put South Africa under pressure.

In 1980, the invasion of Soviet troops in Afghanistan politicizes the Summer Olympics in Moscow. Numerous nations boycott the event.
German-German relations reach their lowest point and Polish workers force a free trade union.

1981 Peace demonstration against the deployment of U.S. Pershing II missiles in Bonn's Hofgarten with over 400,000 demonstrators. In the Federal Republic, thousands demonstrate against environmental sins and for peace.
Martial law is imposed in Poland, while in Spain the young democracy passes its first test.

1982 In the Federal Republic, a change of government after 13 years. After the breakup of the social-liberal coalition, Helmut Kohl becomes the new chancellor. Argentina and Great Britain fight over the Falkland Islands and the conflict in the Middle East intensifies.

The international economy is threatened by a worldwide crisis in 1983. In the Federal Republic, people demonstrate for peace and disarmament.
The publication of the forged Hitler diaries goes down in history as one of the greatest journalistic blunders.

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From 1992 onwards, intensive international exhibition activity, including Ladengalerie Berlin (1991), Frost & Reed Ltd., London (1992), G. W. Einstein Company Inc., New York (1993), Galleria Giulia di Roma, Rome (1994).

The multi-part series African Landscapes as well as the works Wanting to Build a House (1994) and A Man Without Livestock Isn't a Man (1994) were created.

1993 First institutional presentation of Africa images at the Paderborn Art Association.

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1990 Nelson Mandela was released after 27 years as a political prisoner. End of apartheid.
In July 1990, Chancellor Kohl and President Gorbachev met for talks in the Caucasus. Gorbachev grants a united Germany full sovereignty and the free choice of alliance membership. The end of the Soviet Union also became apparent with the declaration of independence by some member states, which actually collapsed in 1991.

In 1991, world events were particularly dominated by the Second Gulf War, the wars in the former Yugoslavia and the final dissolution of the Soviet Union. After the August coup in Moscow, numerous Union republics declared their independence. Since then there have been numerous post-Soviet states; the largest of them is Russia.

In 1992, the planned expansion of the East initially turned out to be more of a dismantling. A declining economy is resulting in large-scale layoffs in East Germany. In the USA, Democrat Bill Clinton replaces Republican George Bush as president. The world looks at the Federal Republic in shock. In Rostock-Lichtenhagen, neo-Nazis rioted for four days to the applause of residents and without interference from the police.

In 1993, Jürgen W. Möllemann, Björn Engholm and many other politicians resigned from their positions. The arson attack on the house of a Turkish family in Solingen shocks the republic. Glimmer of hope for peace in the Middle East: PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin sit down at a table in Washington.

In 1994, an election marathon took place in Germany - citizens were asked to vote 20 times. Roman Herzog takes office as Federal President. At the end of 1994, the Treuhandanstalt ceased its work. 900 people die when the Baltic Sea ferry "Estonia" sinks.

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