Frau Solf Tea Party
Encyclopedia
The Solf Circle 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 held near Heidelberg
on September 10, 1943, at the residence of Elisabeth von Thadden
. The group's downfall also ultimately led to the demise of the Abwehr
in February 1944.
, 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 for the Jews and political enemies of the regime; Solf and her daughter were responsible for hiding many Jews and providing them with documents for them to emigrate safely. They also had links with other anti-Nazi groups like the Kreisau Circle
.
, the Protestant headmistress of a famous girls' school in Wieblingen, near Heidelberg
. Among the guests were:
To the party, Thadden brought a handsome Swiss
doctor named Paul Reckzeh
, who was said to be practicing at the Charité Hospital
in Berlin under Professor Ferdinand Sauerbruch
. Like most Swiss, he expressed anti-Nazi sentiments in a discussion joined by others present, most vocal of which were Kiep and Bernstorff. Before the end of the party, Reckzeh offered to convey the correspondence of those present to their friends in Switzerland, an offer which many accepted. However, Reckzeh was actually an agent or informer working for the Gestapo
, and he turned over these letters and reported on the gathering.
Helmuth James Graf von Moltke
, a member of the Kreisau Circle, learned of this betrayal through a friend in the Air Ministry who had tapped
a number of telephone conversations between Reckzeh and the Gestapo, and he quickly warned Kiep, who in turn informed the rest of the Solf Circle. They hurriedly fled for their lives, but it was too late, as Heinrich Himmler
had his evidence. He waited four months to act on it, hoping to cast a wider net; apparently he succeeded, for on January 12, 1944, some seventy-four persons, including everyone who had been in the tea party, were arrested. The Solfs themselves fled to Bavaria
and were caught by the Gestapo; they were then incarcerated in Ravensbrück concentration camp
. Moltke himself was arrested at this time due to his connection with Kiep. But that was not the only consequence of Kiep's arrest - its repercussions spread as far as Turkey, and resulted in the final demise of the Abwehr, already under suspicion as a hotbed of anti-Nazi activity.
and his wife, the former Countess Elisabeth von Plettenberg
. Vermehren, by profession a lawyer from Hamburg
, was prevented from taking up a Rhodes scholarship
in Oxford in 1938 because he repeatedly refused to join the Hitler Youth
. Excluded from military service because of a childhood injury, he managed to get himself assigned to the Istanbul
branch of the Abwehr. He also managed to get his wife to follow him, despite the Gestapo's efforts to detain her in Germany as a hostage.
When Kiep was arrested, the Vermehrens were summoned to Berlin by the Gestapo to be interrogated in connection with their friend's case. Knowing what would be in store for them, they got in touch with the British Secret Intelligence Service
in February, 1944, and were flown to Cairo
and thence to England.
When the news of the defection broke – courtesy of British propaganda
– it became the talk of Berlin. Although the Vermehrens did not bring any documents of any intelligence value or ciphers to the Allies
, it was believed that they absconded with the Abwehr's secret codes and handed them over to the British. This proved to be the last straw for Adolf Hitler
. On February 18, he ordered that the Abwehr be dissolved and its functions taken over by the RSHA
, under Himmler's jurisdiction. The disintegration of the Abwehr caused the resignation of hundreds of officers who took up positions elsewhere rather than serve the SS
.
While the demise of the Abwehr was an unexpected but welcome boon to the Allies, it also deprived the German armed forces of an intelligence service of its own, and was a further blow to those among the anti-Nazi conspirators against Hitler who had also used the Abwehr's resources.
's Volksgerichtshof, and eventually executed. Kiep himself was subjected to severe torture; while being interrogated after his conviction, the Gestapo learned of his involvement with the July 20 Plot
. He was executed in Plötzensee Prison
on August 15, 1944. Elisabeth von Thadden also met the same fate on September 8.
Bernstorff was confined to Ravensbrück together with Solf and repeatedly tortured. He was then sent to the prison in Prinz Albrecht Straße to stand trial in the Volksgerichtshof, but Freisler did not have the satisfaction of sentencing him, for he was killed in an air raid on February 3, 1945. When the Red Army
liberated the prison on April 25, he was not among the living. Together with Richard Kuenzer, Bernstorff was taken out of the prison two days before to the vicinity of the Lehrter Bahnhof, and presumably shot upon the orders of Joachim von Ribbentrop
, the Nazi Foreign Minister.
Remand Prison while awaiting their trial in the Volksgerichtshof. The considerable delay in their trial was at least in part due to the efforts of the Japanese ambassador, Hiroshi Ōshima
, who knew the Solfs. Their trial was further delayed because the same air raid that killed Freisler on February 3, 1945 also destroyed the dossier on the Solfs, which was in the files of the Volksgerichtshof. Nevertheless they were finally scheduled to be tried on April 27, but they were released from Moabit on April 23, apparently because of an error brought about by the confusion caused by the entry of the Red Army into Berlin.
After the war, Solf went to England while her daughter was reunited with her husband, Count Hubert Ballestrem, who was an officer in the Wehrmacht
and lived in Berlin. Solf died on November 4, 1954 in Starnberg
, Bavaria.
Countess von Ballestrem died on December 4, 1955 at the age of 46, her early death attributable to her incarceration.
German Resistance
The German resistance was the opposition by individuals and groups in Germany to Adolf Hitler or the National Socialist regime between 1933 and 1945. Some of these engaged in active plans to remove Adolf Hitler from power and overthrow his regime...
against Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. Most members were arrested and executed after attending a tea party held near Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
on September 10, 1943, at the residence of Elisabeth von Thadden
Elisabeth von Thadden
Elisabeth Adelheid Hildegard von Thadden was a German educator who founded a private school that now bears her name, and an outspoken critic of the Nazi régime...
. The group's downfall also ultimately led to the demise of the Abwehr
Abwehr
The Abwehr was a German military intelligence organisation from 1921 to 1944. The term Abwehr was used as a concession to Allied demands that Germany's post-World War I intelligence activities be for "defensive" purposes only...
in February 1944.
Background
Johanna (or Hannah) Solf was the widow of Dr. Wilhelm SolfWilhelm Solf
Wilhelm Heinrich Solf was a German scholar, diplomat, jurist and statesman.-Early life:Wilhelm Solf was born into a wealthy and liberal family in Berlin. He attended secondary schools in Anklam in western Pomerania and in Mannheim...
, who served as Imperial Colonial Secretary before the outbreak of World War I and ambassador to Japan under the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
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 for the Jews and political enemies of the regime; Solf and her daughter were responsible for hiding many Jews and providing them with documents for them to emigrate safely. They also had links with other anti-Nazi groups like the Kreisau Circle
Kreisau Circle
The Kreisau Circle was the name the Nazi Gestapo gave to a group of German dissidents centered on the Kreisau estate of Helmuth James Graf von Moltke. The Kreisauer Kreis is celebrated as one of the instances of German opposition to the Nazi regime...
.
The tea party and betrayal of the Solf Circle
On September 10, 1943, the Solf Circle met at a birthday party given by Elisabeth von ThaddenElisabeth von Thadden
Elisabeth Adelheid Hildegard von Thadden was a German educator who founded a private school that now bears her name, and an outspoken critic of the Nazi régime...
, the Protestant headmistress of a famous girls' school in Wieblingen, near Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
. Among the guests were:
- the Countess Hannah von Bredow, the granddaughter of Otto von BismarckOtto von BismarckOtto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...
; - Count Albrecht von Bernstorff, the nephew of Count Johann Heinrich von BernstorffJohann Heinrich von BernstorffJohann Heinrich Graf von Bernstorff was a German politician and the ambassador to the United States and Mexico from 1908 to 1917.- Early life :...
, the German ambassador to the United States during the First World War; - Father Erxleben, a well-known JesuitSociety of JesusThe Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
priest; - Nikolaus-Christoph von Halem, a merchant;
- Legation adviser Richard Kuenzer; and
- Otto KiepOtto KiepOtto Carl Kiep was the Chief of the Reich Press Office . He became involved with the resistance against the Nazis and was executed in 1944.-Life:...
, a high official from the Foreign Office, who was once dismissed from his position as consul general in New York City for attending a public luncheon in honor of Albert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
, but was able to get himself reinstated in the diplomatic service.
To the party, Thadden brought a handsome Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
doctor named Paul Reckzeh
Paul Reckzeh
Paul Reckzeh 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....
, who was said to be practicing at the Charité Hospital
Charité
The Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin is the medical school for both the Humboldt University and the Free University of Berlin. After the merger with their fourth campus in 2003, the Charité is one of the largest university hospitals in Europe....
in Berlin under Professor Ferdinand Sauerbruch
Ferdinand Sauerbruch
Ernst Ferdinand Sauerbruch was a German surgeon.Sauerbruch was born in Barmen , Germany. He studied medicine at the Philipps University of Marburg, the University of Greifswald, the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, and the University of Leipzig, from the last of which he graduated in 1902...
. Like most Swiss, he expressed anti-Nazi sentiments in a discussion joined by others present, most vocal of which were Kiep and Bernstorff. Before the end of the party, Reckzeh offered to convey the correspondence of those present to their friends in Switzerland, an offer which many accepted. However, Reckzeh was actually an agent or informer working for the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
, and he turned over these letters and reported on the gathering.
Helmuth James Graf von Moltke
Helmuth James Graf von Moltke
Helmuth James Graf von Moltke was a German jurist who, as a draftee in the German Abwehr, acted to subvert German human-rights abuses of people in territories occupied by Germany during World War II and subsequently became a founding member of the Kreisau Circle resistance group, whose members...
, a member of the Kreisau Circle, learned of this betrayal through a friend in the Air Ministry who had tapped
Telephone tapping
Telephone tapping is the monitoring of telephone and Internet conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitoring connection was an actual electrical tap on the telephone line...
a number of telephone conversations between Reckzeh and the Gestapo, and he quickly warned Kiep, who in turn informed the rest of the Solf Circle. They hurriedly fled for their lives, but it was too late, as Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
had his evidence. He waited four months to act on it, hoping to cast a wider net; apparently he succeeded, for on January 12, 1944, some seventy-four persons, including everyone who had been in the tea party, were arrested. The Solfs themselves fled to Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
and were caught by the Gestapo; they were then incarcerated in Ravensbrück concentration camp
Ravensbrück concentration camp
Ravensbrück was a notorious women's concentration camp during World War II, located in northern Germany, 90 km north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück ....
. Moltke himself was arrested at this time due to his connection with Kiep. But that was not the only consequence of Kiep's arrest - its repercussions spread as far as Turkey, and resulted in the final demise of the Abwehr, already under suspicion as a hotbed of anti-Nazi activity.
The defection of Erich Vermehren and the dissolution of the Abwehr
Among Kiep's close friends were Erich VermehrenErich Vermehren
Erich Vermehren, also known as Erich Vermeeren de Saventhem or Eric Maria de Saventhem, was an ardent anti-Nazi and is best known as the German agent of the Abwehr, the German intelligence organization, whose well-publicized defection to the British in early 1944 led directly to the abolition of...
and his wife, the former Countess Elisabeth von Plettenberg
House of Plettenberg
The House of Plettenberg is a Westphalian noble family of the Uradel. It dates back at least to 1187, when Heidolphus de Plettenbrath was mentioned in a document by Philip I...
. Vermehren, by profession a lawyer from Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, was prevented from taking up a Rhodes scholarship
Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship, named after Cecil Rhodes, is an international postgraduate award for study at the University of Oxford. It was the first large-scale programme of international scholarships, and is widely considered the "world's most prestigious scholarship" by many public sources such as...
in Oxford in 1938 because he repeatedly refused to join the Hitler Youth
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung...
. Excluded from military service because of a childhood injury, he managed to get himself assigned to the Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
branch of the Abwehr. He also managed to get his wife to follow him, despite the Gestapo's efforts to detain her in Germany as a hostage.
When Kiep was arrested, the Vermehrens were summoned to Berlin by the Gestapo to be interrogated in connection with their friend's case. Knowing what would be in store for them, they got in touch with the British Secret Intelligence Service
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
in February, 1944, and were flown to Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
and thence to England.
When the news of the defection broke – courtesy of British propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
– it became the talk of Berlin. Although the Vermehrens did not bring any documents of any intelligence value or ciphers to the Allies
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
, it was believed that they absconded with the Abwehr's secret codes and handed them over to the British. This proved to be the last straw for Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
. On February 18, he ordered that the Abwehr be dissolved and its functions taken over by the RSHA
RSHA
The RSHA, or Reichssicherheitshauptamt was an organization subordinate to Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacities as Chef der Deutschen Polizei and Reichsführer-SS...
, under Himmler's jurisdiction. The disintegration of the Abwehr caused the resignation of hundreds of officers who took up positions elsewhere rather than serve the SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
.
While the demise of the Abwehr was an unexpected but welcome boon to the Allies, it also deprived the German armed forces of an intelligence service of its own, and was a further blow to those among the anti-Nazi conspirators against Hitler who had also used the Abwehr's resources.
The fate of some members of the Solf Circle
Most members of the Solf Circle were tried and convicted in Roland FreislerRoland Freisler
Roland Freisler was a prominent and notorious Nazi lawyer and judge. He was State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice and President of the People's Court , which was set up outside constitutional authority...
's Volksgerichtshof, and eventually executed. Kiep himself was subjected to severe torture; while being interrogated after his conviction, the Gestapo learned of his involvement with the July 20 Plot
July 20 Plot
On 20 July 1944, an attempt was made to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of the Third Reich, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia. The plot was the culmination of the efforts of several groups in the German Resistance to overthrow the Nazi-led German government...
. He was executed in Plötzensee Prison
Plötzensee Prison
Plötzensee Prison was a Prussian institution built in Berlin between 1869 and 1879 near the lake Plötzensee, but in the neighbouring borough of Charlottenburg, on Hüttigpfad off Saatwinkler Damm. During Adolf Hitler's time in power from 1933 to 1945, more than 2,500 people were executed at...
on August 15, 1944. Elisabeth von Thadden also met the same fate on September 8.
Bernstorff was confined to Ravensbrück together with Solf and repeatedly tortured. He was then sent to the prison in Prinz Albrecht Straße to stand trial in the Volksgerichtshof, but Freisler did not have the satisfaction of sentencing him, for he was killed in an air raid on February 3, 1945. When the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
liberated the prison on April 25, he was not among the living. Together with Richard Kuenzer, Bernstorff was taken out of the prison two days before to the vicinity of the Lehrter Bahnhof, and presumably shot upon the orders of Joachim von Ribbentrop
Joachim von Ribbentrop
Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 until 1945. He was later hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg Trials.-Early life:...
, the Nazi Foreign Minister.
The fate of the Solfs
Solf and her daughter Lagi were interned in Ravensbrück after their arrest. On December 1944 they were transferred to MoabitMoabit
Moabit is an inner city locality of Berlin. Since Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it belongs to the newly regrouped governmental borough of Mitte. Previously, from 1920 to 2001, it belonged to the borough of Tiergarten. Moabit's borders are defined by three watercourses, the Spree, the...
Remand Prison while awaiting their trial in the Volksgerichtshof. The considerable delay in their trial was at least in part due to the efforts of the Japanese ambassador, Hiroshi Ōshima
Hiroshi Ōshima
Baron was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army, Japanese ambassador to Nazi Germany before and during World War II — and unknowingly a major source of communications intelligence for the Allies. His role was perhaps best summed up by General George C...
, who knew the Solfs. Their trial was further delayed because the same air raid that killed Freisler on February 3, 1945 also destroyed the dossier on the Solfs, which was in the files of the Volksgerichtshof. Nevertheless they were finally scheduled to be tried on April 27, but they were released from Moabit on April 23, apparently because of an error brought about by the confusion caused by the entry of the Red Army into Berlin.
After the war, Solf went to England while her daughter was reunited with her husband, Count Hubert Ballestrem, who was an officer in the Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
and lived in Berlin. Solf died on November 4, 1954 in Starnberg
Starnberg
The city of Starnberg is in Bavaria, Germany, some 30 km south-west of Munich. It lies at the north end of Lake Starnberg, in the heart of the "Five Lakes Country", and serves as capital of the district of Starnberg...
, Bavaria.
Countess von Ballestrem died on December 4, 1955 at the age of 46, her early death attributable to her incarceration.
See also
- Anti-fascismAnti-fascismAnti-fascism is the opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals, such as that of the resistance movements during World War II. The related term antifa derives from Antifaschismus, which is German for anti-fascism; it refers to individuals and groups on the left of the political...
- List of members of the July 20 plot
- :Category:Members of the Solf Circle