Maud von Ossietzky
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Maud von Ossietzky | |
|---|---|
| Born | 12 December 1888 |
| Died | 12 May 1974 (aged 85) |
| Occupations | suffragette, political activist |
| Spouse | Carl von Ossietzky (German) |
| Children | Rosalinde von Ossietzky-Palm |
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.
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]
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 little 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 spent the next years fighting to move his body to a cemetery in the Berlin neighborhood of Pankow.[12]
Maud 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]
She invested the money awarded with her husband's Nobel Peace Prize with lawyer Kurt Wannow, but Wannow embezzled the sum in 1937.[13][3]
Historical inconsistencies
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]
