Wikipedia

Maud von Ossietzky

Maud Hester von Ossietzky (née Lichfield-Woods; 12 December 1888, Hyderabad – 12 May 1974, Berlin) was a suffragette and the wife of German journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Carl von Ossietzky.

Maud von Ossietzky
Born12 December 1888 (1888-12-12)
Hyderabad, British India
Died12 May 1974 (1974-05-13) (aged 85)
Berlin, East Germany
Occupation(s)suffragette, political activist
SpouseCarl von Ossietzky (German)
ChildrenRosalinde von Ossietzky-Palm

She was born in Hyderabad, India, to a British colonial officer and the descendant of an Indian princess.[1] Despite her Indian heritage, she is almost always referred to as an "Englishwoman."[2][3][4][5]

She was active in the British suffragette movement in her youth.[1]

Life with Carl von Ossietzky edit

In Hamburg (or perhaps Fairhaven, England)[6] on 19 August 1913, she married Carl von Ossietzky, a pacifist and later a writer for and editor-in-chief of the leftist German weekly Die Weltbühne (The World Stage).[7][8][4] The couple met in 1912 in Hamburg, but not much is known about their early life together.[8] It seems that her wealthy family opposed the marriage.[9] Early in their marriage, she paid a fine on his behalf after he published an anti-war article.[5] Surviving letters attest to Carl's devotion to his wife. While Carl served in World War I, he wrote Maud a letter that described her as an igniting force in his life: "You are the magnet that first touched the rigid iron."[9] In 1922, he wrote to her that he "blessed the fate that sent her."[9]

Their daughter Rosalinde was born on 21 December 1919.[3]

While Carl worked as a writer and political activist, Maud organized lectures for him.[6] In 1931, Carl von Ossietzky was imprisoned for "treason and espionage" because of his role in publishing details of German remilitarization; he was released in 1932.[10]

After the Reichstag Fire in April 1933, von Ossietzky wanted to flee Germany, but her husband chose to remain.[9] He was quickly arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in a series of prisons and concentration camps.[3] Whether she was a supportive wife[9] or incapable of helping her husband,[11] neither she nor her husband's famous international friends could release him from Nazi concentration camps.

In 1936, Carl von Ossietzky contracted tuberculosis and was moved to a hospital in Berlin.[1] He was awarded the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize during this period, though his sickness did not allow him to accept it in person. His wife nursed him until he died on 4 May 1938.[9][6] Carl von Ossietzky was buried in a municipal cemetery, and Maud would spend the next years fighting to move his body to a cemetery in the Berlin neighborhood of Pankow.[12]

Von Ossietzky spent time in a psychiatric clinic after his death.[1] One author has claimed that the Gestapo ordered her to stop using her late husband's name and lived as "Maud Woods."[1]

Von Ossietzky invested the money awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize with lawyer Kurt Wannow, but Wannow embezzled the sum in 1937.[13][3]

Historical inconsistencies edit

Many sources state that by the time the Nazis imprisoned her husband, von Ossietzky was an alcoholic,[11] with one writing that her alcoholism "caused [her husband] great pain ... but may have protected her from retribution under the Nazis."[2] Others have claimed that her husband's death caused her alcoholism.[1] Their daughter blamed Die Weltbühne for her mother's (unspecified) "illness."[9]

During World War II, Rosalinde was sent to a Quaker boarding school in England through the support of Ernst Toller and the Quakers.[11][14] Another source claims that Maud and Rosalinde emigrated to Sweden via England,[13] though there are no other sources that place Maud in Sweden. A third source states that Maud remained in Berlin when Rosalinde traveled from England to Sweden.[14] Rosalinde died in Sweden in 2000.[15]

German sources tend to ascribe Maud a more positive and active role,[9][6] while English-language scholarship often describes her in less complimentary terms.[1][2][11]

Later life edit

On 1 June 1946, Die Weltbühne reappeared in the Soviet sector of Berlin with Maud von Ossietzky and Hans Leonard listed as editors.[16][17][1] Leonard, her neighbor, had a career in publishing ended by Nazi antisemitic discrimination.[17] Von Ossietzky and Leonard revived a Weimar-era publication that endures to this day.

In 1966, von Ossietzky published her memoir, Maud von Ossietzky erzählt: ein Lebensbild (Maud von Ossietzky Explains: a Life Story).[18] German academic Wolfgang Schivelbusch describes the book as "admittedly unreliable,"[1] while István Deák calls it "charming and straightforward."[16]

She died in 1974 in Berlin and is buried next to her husband in Pankow.[12][19]

Further reading edit

  • Maud von Ossietzky erzählt: ein Lebensbild (Berlin: Buchverlag der Morgen, 1966). It was republished in 1988. There is currently no English translation.
  • An album containing Carl's letters to Maud is held in the Carl von Ossietzky Archive at the Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg, Germany.

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Schivelbusch, Wolfgang (1998). In a Cold Crater: Cultural and Intellectual Life in Berlin, 1945–1948. Berkeley, CA: UC Press E-Books Collection, 1982-2004; California Digital Library. pp. 171–174.
  2. ^ a b c McCormack, W. J. (11 January 2011). Blood Kindred: W. B. Yeats, the Life, the Death, the Politics. Random House. pp. [no page numbers online]. ISBN 978-1-4464-4424-5.
  3. ^ a b c d "Der Namensgeber". Carl-von-Ossietzky-Schule (in German). 28 April 2017. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
  4. ^ a b Wistrich, Robert S. (4 July 2013). Who's Who in Nazi Germany. Routledge. p. 186. ISBN 978-1-136-41388-9.
  5. ^ a b "Carl von Ossietzky," from Nobel Lectures, Peace 1926-1950, Editor Frederick W. Haberman, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972. Originally written in 1935.
  6. ^ a b c d Grathoff, Dirk (1999). "Ossietzky, Carl von". Deutsche Biografie. Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German). pp. 610–611. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
  7. ^ Himmler, Katrin; Wildt, Michael (8 March 2016). The Private Heinrich Himmler: Letters of a Mass Murderer. St. Martin's Publishing Group. p. 309. ISBN 978-1-4668-7089-5.
  8. ^ a b Goeller, Tom (29 May 2013). Freimaurer: Aufklärung eines Mythos (in German). be.bra verlag. pp. [no page numbers online]. ISBN 978-3-8393-0102-9.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h "Das Gefühl für die Republik". Spiegel Online. Vol. 16. 18 April 1988. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
  10. ^ Haberman, Frederick W. Peace 1926–1950 (1999), World Scientific, pg. 211.
  11. ^ a b c d Oppermann, Paula (19 March 2015). "Beyond a Biography: Hilde Walter's Testimony and a Research Journey through the Wiener Library Archives". Wiener Holocaust Library Blog - Wiener Library. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
  12. ^ a b Wähner, Bernd (18 May 2018). "Erinnerung an einen Pazifisten: Carl von Ossietzkys Ehrengrab befindet sich in Pankow". Berliner Woche (in German). Retrieved 23 November 2019.
  13. ^ a b Tietz, Tabea (3 October 2019). "Carl von Ossietzky and Political Reason". SciHi Blog. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
  14. ^ a b Singer, Kurt D. (April 2001). "Addendum to 1935 Carl von Ossietzky biography: The peace hero in the concentration camp". The Danish Peace Academy. Archived from the original on 22 July 2017. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
  15. ^ "Universität trauert um Rosalinde von Ossietzky-Palm". University of Oldenburg (in German). 8 February 2000. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  16. ^ a b Deák, István (1968). Weimar Germany's Left-wing Intellectuals: A Political History of the Weltbühne and Its Circle. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. pp. 221. Maud von Ossietzky.
  17. ^ a b Forner, Sean A. (23 March 2017). German Intellectuals and the Challenge of Democratic Renewal: Culture and Politics After 1945. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-107-62783-3.
  18. ^ Haberman, Frederick W. (1999). Nobel Lectures in Peace. World Scientific. p. 213. ISBN 978-981-02-3415-7.
  19. ^ "Maud Lichfield-Woods von Ossietzky". Find a Grave. Retrieved 22 November 2019.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maud_von_Ossietzky&oldid=1178536723"