Clarita von Trott zu Solz, née Tiefenbacher (born on 19 September 1917 in Hamburg; deceased on 28 March 2013 in Berlin), was a German

medical doctor A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

and

psychotherapist Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase happiness, and overcome pro ...

, and the widow of Adam von Trott zu Solz, one of the figureheads of

German resistance to Nazism Many individuals and groups in Germany that were opposed to the Nazi Germany, Nazi regime engaged in active resistance, including assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler, attempts to remove Adolf Hitler from power by assassination or by overthro ...

and one of the protagonists of the

20 July plot On 20 July 1944, Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia, now Kętrzyn, in present-day Poland. The ...

, who was executed after the failure of the assassination attempt against Hitler.

Biography

Clarita Tiefenbacher was the daughter of a prominent Hamburg lawyer. She became acquainted with Adam von Trott zu Solz in 1935, happened to travel with him to China, and married him in June 1940. Living in Berlin, the young couple had two daughters, Verena, born in 1942 and Clarita, born in 1943. Given the increasing bombings, she took refuge with her two daughters at her family in-law's in Imshausen, part of the city of Bebra in Hesse. This is where the Gestapo came to arrest them on 20 July 1944. Under the Sippenhaft law (criminal liability of the next of kin to a person considered a criminal), she was placed in custody in the Moabit prison in Berlin while her two daughters, aged respectively 2 years and nine months, were interned under false names in the SS-run children's home of Bornheim in Bad Sachsa. In 1947, Clarita von Trott was one of the first Germans allowed out of Germany after the end of the war, in order to take part in Caux conferences and participate in the reconstruction of Europe. She was invited by Swiss diplomat

Philippe Mottu Philippe Mottu was a Swiss diplomat, author and activist born on 9 October 1913 in Geneva; he died in Lonay (Vaud) on 23 August 2010. In 1946, inspired by the American Frank Buchman, he was instrumental in the acquisition of the former Caux Palace H ...

who had been in contact with the conspirators of the plot against Hitler during the war. Her personal testimony transformed the French Socialist MP and former

Resistance fighter A resistance movement is an organized effort by some portion of the civil population of a country to withstand the legally established government or an occupying power and to disrupt civil order and stability. It may seek to achieve its objectives ...

Irene Laure who became from then on a Franco-German reconciliation activist. In 1950, Clarita von Trott began studying medicine and, in 1965, wrote her thesis on "the influence of the usual fixers of ultraviolet absorption by serum protein bodies." She then obtained qualifications as a

and

psychoanalyst PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: + . is a set of Theory, theories and Therapy, therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a bo ...

and practised in Hamburg and Berlin. At the same time, she led the fight to defend the memory of

participants and the memory and message of her husband. (Until the 1950s, the widows of the conspirators against Hitler received no state pension, their husbands being listed as "traitors".) She teamed up with Freya von Moltke and Rosemarie Reichwein in order to initiate the International Meeting of Youth Kreisau / Krzyżowa. Clarita von Trott kept expressing her message especially to young people, until the end. She was honorary president of the Adam von Trott Foundation. The Wilhelm Leuschner medal was awarded to her by the State of Hesse in 1998.

Family

On 1 March 1942, Verena, the first daughter of Adam and Clarita von Trott, was born in Berlin. Their second daughter Clarita, born on 9 November 1943, would become a famous sociologist and marry fellow sociologist Urs Müller-Plantenberg. "My life has been exceptionally rich as the mother to my daughters and their families, and as a therapist, through the friendships and the medical treatment of people in a state of mental distress, but in the centre of my existence, Adam's place, has remained empty," she wrote in 1987, adding in another statement "My four years of marriage - although they were war years - were in spite of all my most happy years."

Publications

Adam von Trott zu Solz. Eine Lebensbeschreibung. Mit einer Einführung von Peter Steinbach. Durch neue Dokumente ergänzte Ausgabe, Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2009, ().

References

Sources

* (de) Dorothee von Meding : Mit dem Mut des Herzens. Die Frauen des 20. Juli. Berlin 1992 * (de) Benigna von Krusenstjern : »daß es Sinn hat zu sterben - gelebt zu haben« Adam von Trott zu Solz 1909–1944. Biographie. Wallstein, Göttingen, 2009. 608 pages. . {{DEFAULTSORT:Trott Zu Solz, Clarita Von 1917 births 2013 deaths Physicians from Hamburg Trott zu Solz family German resistance members German anti-fascists German psychotherapists German psychoanalysts Female anti-fascists