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Erika von Brockdorff (née Schönfeldt, Countess von Brockdorff) (29 April 1911 – 13 May 1943) was a German resistance fighter against the Nazi regime during the Second World War. Brockdorff was a member of what the Reich Security Main Office termed the Red Orchestra resistance movement.
Brockdorff was born in Kolberg (Kołobrzeg), Province of Pomerania, on Pomerania's Baltic Sea coast.
Her father worked for the post office. From 1929, after finishing middle school and housekeeping school in Magdeburg, she worked in Berlin as a housekeeper and a model, and also, after additional training in shorthand typing, as an office specialist. In 1937, she married the sculptor Graf Cay–Hugo von Brockdorff, and shortly thereafter, their daughter Saskia was born.
From 1941, Brockdorff put her flat at Hans Coppi's resistance movement's disposal as their radio headquarters (she was having an affair with Coppi at the time). She was soon arrested along with the other Red Orchestra members and sent to Charlottenburg Women's Prison. She was sentenced at the Reichskriegsgericht to ten years in labour prison (Zuchthaus) in January 1943. Adolf Hitler was not satisfied with this, however, and on the very same day as the judgment, on his orders, the sentence was changed to death. Together with Mildred Harnack, she waited another four months for the sentence to be carried out; her colleague Elfriede Paul was one of the few who escaped the death sentence. On the evening of 13 May 1943, she was put to death, by guillotine, along with thirteen other persons at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin.
Sources
- "Erika Gräfin von Brockdorff". Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand. German Resistance Memorial Center. Retrieved 13 April 2019.
- Frömel, Johann. "Brockdorff, Erika Gräfin von". Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen (in German). Bonn: Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen für Wissenschaft und Forschung. Archived from the original on 24 March 2024. Retrieved 24 March 2024.
- Shareen Blair Brysac (23 May 2002). Resisting Hitler: Mildred Harnack and the Red Orchestra. Oxford University Press. pp. 317–318. ISBN 978-0-19-992388-5.
- "The Resistance Networks". German Resistance Memorial Center. Retrieved 2008-07-24.
Bibliography
- Frömel, Johann. "Brockdorff, Erika Gräfin von". Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen. Bonn: Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen für Wissenschaft und Forschung. Archived from the original on 19 March 2024. Retrieved 19 March 2024.
- Hildebrandt, Sabine (January 2013). "The women on stieve's list: Victims of national socialism whose bodies were used for anatomical research". Clinical Anatomy. 26 (1): 3–21. doi:10.1002/ca.22195. hdl:2027.42/94885. PMID 23238847.
- Wörmann, Heinrich-Wilhelm (2002). Widerstand in Schöneberg und Tempelhof (PDF) (in German). Berlin: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand. p. 171.
External links
- Saskia von Brockdorff: Farewell letter from Erika von Brockdorff to her daughter (In German)
- Saskia von Brockdorff: Remains in pathology (In German)
- Saskia von Brockdorff: Later peace with her mother (In German)
Media related to Erika Gräfin von Brockdorff at Wikimedia Commons
