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Hanna Solf
Johanna Susanne Elisabeth Solf (née Dotti, 14 November 1887 – 4 November 1954) was a member of the German resistance to Nazism and key member of the Solf Circle. Johanna Dotti married Wilhelm Solf in 1908, who was then governor of German Samoa. Lagi von Ballestrem (born So'oa'emalelagi Solf in 1909) was their eldest child. Starting in 1928 they lived in Berlin, where Wilhelm died in 1936. Hanna Solf and Elisabeth von Thadden frequently hosted tea parties for intellectuals opposed to the Nazi government, a group which would later be called Solf Circle (german: Solf-Kreis). They would make plans how to enable victims of Nazi persecution to flee the country. After the uncovering of the Solf Circle by Paul Reckzeh, its members were arrested by the Gestapo. Hanna Solf was detained on 12 January 1944 and ultimately brought to Ravensbrück concentration camp. While several members of the group were executed, Solf and her daughter were freed before their trial when the Red Army ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Witness Hanna Solf
In law, a witness is someone who has knowledge about a matter, whether they have sensed it or are testifying on another witnesses' behalf. In law a witness is someone who, either voluntarily or under compulsion, provides testimonial evidence, either oral or written, of what they know or claim to know. In law a witness might be compelled to provide testimony in court, before a grand jury, before an administrative tribunal, before a deposition officer, or in a variety of other legal proceedings. A subpoena is a legal document that commands a person to appear at a proceeding. It is used to compel the testimony of a witness in a trial. Usually, it can be issued by a judge or by the lawyer representing the plaintiff or the defendant in a civil trial or by the prosecutor or the defense attorney in a criminal proceeding, or by a government agency. In many jurisdictions, it is compulsory to comply with the subpoena and either take an oath or solemnly affirm to testify truthfully ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Resistance To Nazism
Many individuals and groups in Germany that were opposed to the Nazi regime engaged in active resistance, including attempts to remove Adolf Hitler from power by assassination or by overthrowing his established regime. German resistance was not recognized as a collective united resistance movement during the height of Nazi Germany, unlike the more coordinated efforts in other countries, such as Italy, Denmark, the Soviet Union, Poland, Greece, Yugoslavia, France, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia and Norway. The German resistance consisted of small, isolated groups that were unable to mobilize widespread political opposition. Individual attacks on Nazi authority, sabotage, and the successful disclosure of information regarding Nazi armaments factories to the Allies, as by the Austrian resistance group led by Heinrich Maier prevailed alongside this as well. One strategy was to persuade leaders of the Wehrmacht to stage a coup against the regime; the 1944 assassination atte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solf Circle
The Solf Circle (german: Solf-Kreis) was an informal gathering of German intellectuals involved in the resistance against Nazi Germany. Most members were arrested and executed after attending a tea party in Berlin on 10 September 1943 at the residence of Elisabeth von Thadden. The group's downfall also ultimately led to the demise of the Abwehr in February 1944. Background Hanna Solf was the widow of Dr. Wilhelm Solf, who served as Imperial Colonial Secretary before the outbreak of World War I and ambassador to Japan under the Weimar Republic and, like her husband, was a political moderate and anti-Nazi. After her husband's death in 1936 she had presided over a circle of anti-Nazi intellectuals in her salon in Berlin, reminiscent of the SeSiSo Club, together with her daughter, the Countess So'oa'emalelagi "Lagi" von Ballestrem-Solf. They included career officers from the Foreign Office, industrialists and writers, and they would meet regularly to discuss the war and relief ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand
The German Resistance Memorial Center (german: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand) is a memorial and museum in Berlin, capital of Germany. History It was opened in 1980 in part of the Bendlerblock, a complex of offices in Stauffenbergstrasse (formerly Bendlerstrasse), south of the Großer Tiergarten in Tiergarten. It was here that Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and other members of the failed 20 July plot that attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler were executed. Although the memorial is primarily intended to commemorate those members of the German Army who tried to assassinate Hitler in 1944, it is also a memorial to the German resistance in the broader sense. Historians agree that there was no united, national resistance movement in Nazi Germany at any time during Hitler's years in power (1933–45). Joachim Fest describes it as "the resistance that never was." Nevertheless, the term German Resistance (''Deutscher Widerstand'') is now used to describe all e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wilhelm Solf
Wilhelm Heinrich Solf (5 October 1862 – 6 February 1936) was a German scholar, diplomat, jurist and statesman. Early life Solf was born into a wealthy and liberal family in Berlin. He attended secondary schools in Anklam, western Pomerania, and in Mannheim. He took up the study of Oriental languages, in particular Sanskrit, at universities in Berlin, Göttingen and Halle and earning a doctorate in philology in the winter of 1885. Under the supervision of the well-known Indologist Richard Pischel, Solf wrote an elementary grammar of Sanskrit. Solf then found a position at the library of the University of Kiel. While residing there, he was drafted into the Imperial Navy to serve his military obligation. However, he was deemed medically unfit for military service and discharged. Early diplomatic career Solf joined the German Foreign Office (Consular Service) on 12 December 1888 and was assigned to the Imperial German Consulate General in Calcutta on 1 January 1889. However, he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Samoa
German Samoa (german: Deutsch-Samoa) was a German protectorate from 1900 to 1920, consisting of the islands of Upolu, Savai'i, Apolima and Manono, now wholly within the independent state of Samoa, formerly ''Western Samoa''. Samoa was the last German colonial acquisition in the Pacific basin, received following the Tripartite Convention signed at Washington on 2 December 1899 with ratifications exchanged on 16 February 1900.Ryden, George Herbert. ''The Foreign Policy of the United States in Relation to Samoa''. New York: Octagon Books, 1975. (Reprint by special arrangement with Yale University Press. Originally published at New Haven: Yale University Press, 1928), p. 574; the Tripartite Convention (United States, Germany, Great Britain) was signed at Washington on 2 December 1899 with ratifications exchanged on 16 February 1900 It was the only German colony in the Pacific, aside from the Kiautschou Bay concession in China, that was administered separately from German New Guine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lagi Von Ballestrem
So'oa'emalelagi Gräfin von Ballestrem (née Solf, 31 August 1909 – 14 September 1955) was a part of the German resistance to Nazism as a member of the Solf Circle. She was born in Vailima, German Samoa as the daughter of Wilhelm Solf, the German colonial governor, and Hanna Solf. Her Samoan birth name was typically abbreviated to Lagi. Biography She lived in Shanghai with her first husband Wolfgang Mohr (married 1932) where she helped Jewish refugees. She returned to Berlin in 1938, at which time she was questioned by the Gestapo. Her first marriage ended in 1939, the following year she married Hubertus Graf von Ballestrem (1910-1995), son of Count Valentin Gustav Alexander Joseph Christian von Ballestrem (1860-1920) and his wife, Countess Agnes of Stolberg-Stolberg (1874-1940). Together with her mother Hanna, Lagi von Ballestrem planned escape routes for fleeing Jews and participated in secret meetings with other opponents of the Nazi regime. This group of intellectuals wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elisabeth Von Thadden
Elisabeth Adelheid Hildegard von Thadden (29 July 1890 – 8 September 1944, executed) was a German progressive educator and a resistance fighter against the Nazi régime as a member of the Solf Circle. She was sentenced to death for conspiring to commit high treason and undermining the fighting forces (''Wehrkraftzersetzung''). Early life and family Elisabeth von Thadden was born in Mohrungen, East Prussia (present-day Morąg, Poland) to the long-established noble Thadden family. Her parents were Adolf Gerhard Ludwig von Thadden (1858-1932), Prussian county commissioner (''Landrat'') of '' Landkreis Greifenberg'' in Pomerania (now '' Powiat Gryficki'' in Poland), and Ehrengard von Gerlach (1868–1909). She was the eldest of five children. In 1905, the family moved to the Trieglaff (Trzygłów) estate in Pomerania, where Thadden grew up in a big Protestant family. Elisabeth's brother, Reinold (1891-1976), grew up to be a famous theologian and jurist, and her nephew, Re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victims Of Nazism
This is a list of victims of Nazism who were noted for their achievements. Many on the lists below were of Jewish and Polish origin, although Soviet POWs, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Serbs, Catholics, Roma and dissidents were also murdered. This list includes people from public life who, owing to their origins, their political or religious convictions, or their sexual orientation, were murdered by the Nazi regime. It includes those murdered in the Holocaust, as well as individuals otherwise killed by the Nazis during World War II. Those killed in concentration camps are listed alongside those who were murdered by the Nazi Party or those who chose suicide for political motives or to avoid being murdered. The list is sorted by occupation and by nationality. Performing arts Literature and publishing Visual arts and design Music Humanities Mathematics Natural sciences Medicine and psychology Law, business Theology, spirituality, religion ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Reckzeh
Paul Reckzeh (4 November 1913 in Berlin – 31 March 1996 in Hamburg) was a physician and Gestapo spy who at the end of 1943 betrayed the members of the Solf Circle, which he had joined while claiming to be a Swiss doctor. His betrayal led to the imprisonment and death of many Solf Circle members. Early life and education Reckzeh was born in 1913, the son of medical professor Paul Reckzeh. He studied medicine from 1933 to 1939 and at the age of twenty, became member of the NSDAP. After he graduated from his studies in 1940, he was made an assistant doctor at a hospital in Birkenwerder. He also worked for the ''Reichsärztekammer'' and at the ''Reichsministerium für die besetzten Ostgebiete''. In 1944 he became a Stabsarzt ''(Staff Surgeon)'' in the '' Todt Organisation''. Since 1943 he had been working as a spy for the Gestapo, code named "Robby" and serving under Herbert Lange. In August 1943, he received an assignment to go to Switzerland to ascertain what kind of contacts Ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organisation. On 20 April 1934, oversight of the Gestapo passed to the head of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS), Heinrich Himmler, who was also appointed Chief of German Police by Hitler in 1936. Instead of being exclusively a Prussian state agency, the Gestapo became a national one as a sub-office of the (SiPo; Security Police). From 27 September 1939, it was administered by the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). It became known as (Dept) 4 of the RSHA and was considered a sister organisation to the (SD; Security Service). During World War II, the Gestapo played a key role in the Holocaust. After the war ended, the Gestapo was declared a criminal organisation by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the Nuremberg trials. History After A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ravensbrück Concentration Camp
Ravensbrück () was a German concentration camp exclusively for women from 1939 to 1945, located in northern Germany, north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel). The camp memorial's estimated figure of 132,000 women who were in the camp during the war includes about 48,500 from Poland, 28,000 from the Soviet Union, almost 24,000 from Germany and Austria, nearly 8,000 from France, and thousands from other countries including a few from the United Kingdom and the United States. More than 20,000 of the total were Jewish, approximately 15%. 85% were from other races and cultures. More than 80% were political prisoners. Many prisoners were employed as slave labor by Siemens & Halske. From 1942 to 1945, the Nazis undertook medical experiments to test the effectiveness of sulfonamides. In the spring of 1941, the SS established a small adjacent camp for male inmates, who built and managed the camp's gas chambers in 1944. Of some 130,000 fe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
