Anna Bertha Königsegg

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Anna Bertha Königsegg , née Anna Bertha Gräfin zu Königsegg-Aulendorf , (born May 9, 1883 in Königseggwald , † December 12, 1948 in Salzburg ) was a German Catholic nun, nurse and visitor to the Vincentian Sisters in Austria . The resistance fighter openly campaigned against forced sterilization and euthanasia during the National Socialist era .

Live and act

Anna Bertha Königsegg was the second child of the aristocracy associated count's family Königsegg from Württemberg born on May 9, 1883 in Königseggwald. She was raised religiously and received a comprehensive education, fluent in English, French and Italian. The many charitable works of her strictly Catholic family seem to have encouraged her decision to become a nun . In 1901, at the age of 18, she joined the ancestral home of the Vincentian Sisters in Paris , moved to Angers in 1903 , where she trained as a nurse and in 1906 took on the religious name Marcellina . After the outbreak of World War I , she went to Italy, became a teaching nurse in 1921, and from 1923 took over the management of the Turin nursing school and hospital. Her appointment as a visitor in Salzburg took place on October 20, 1925. She devoted herself to setting up a nursing school there.

After the annexation of Austria , Königsegg came into conflict with the National Socialists , whose ideas of racial hygiene they deeply rejected. In response to the coming into force of the law for the prevention of genetically ill offspring in Austria on January 1, 1940, she issued an instruction that forbade the approximately 100 Sisters of Mercy in the nursing service at the state hospital from participating in forced sterilization or assisting doctors with these operations.

Memorial plaque for Anna Bertha Königsegg in Salzachgässchen 3 in Salzburg

In mid-August 1940, the care institution for the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped at Schernberg Castle near Schwarzach , which was run by the Vincentians, received notification that the sick were to be removed. Allegedly, the beds are needed for other patients. Königsegg responded with a letter to the Reich Defense Commissioner. She made it clear that she knew that her patients would not survive the "transfer" and should be euthanized. She offered to continue caring for the sick at the Order's expense in an attempt to prevent the transfers. At the same time, Königsegg announced that the sisters of their congregation would refuse to cooperate in these campaigns and took full personal responsibility for this, but could not prevent the evacuation of the patients. She was arrested in September 1940, but released after eleven days.

When the relocation of seventy handicapped children from Mariathal near Kramsach was ordered in April 1940 , Königsegg informed the Gauleiter of a new service instruction. She had forbidden her sisters to help fill out the questionnaires, pick them up, or transport them. This letter triggered her second arrest and she was sentenced to 11 months in prison for sabotaging official orders, inciting and causing disturbance among the population. The intimidated sisters in Marienthal nonetheless offered passive resistance and were able to save at least some of the fosterlings. On April 16, 1941, she was arrested again, and while she was away, the fosterlings from Schernberg were deported to the NS killing center in Hartheim amid protests by the sisters . Only a group of 17 could be warned in time, fled into a forest and survived.

The National Socialists tried to force Königsegg to leave the order, but she remained true to her vows despite the threat of being transferred to a concentration camp . She was released in April 1941 under the condition that she only stayed on the family estate in Königseggwald and placed under the supervision of the Gestapo . The house arrest did not end until the end of the war and she returned to Salzburg in her order. There she founded the Luis Sisterhood, a Catholic lay community of nurses, before she died on December 12, 1948.

In Salzburg, the Anna Bertha Königsegg special school for severely disabled children and a street near the cemetery in the Gnigl district commemorates the merits of the nun. Pforzheim intends with the Special Education Center Anna-Bertha-Königsegg school of resistance fighter.

Quote

“It is now an open secret what fate awaits these evacuated sick people, because news of the death of many of them arrives only too often shortly after their transfer. ... What will other countries think of us when such a high-ranking cultural people, who have achieved the greatest victories in world history, begin to mutilate themselves in the middle of their victory run? "

- Anna Bertha Königsegg : From the letter to the Reich Defense Commissioner and Gauleiter of Salzburg, Friedrich Rainer, from August 1940.

literature

Movies

  • Sister Courage - Anna Bertha Königsegg and her resistance to the Nazi regime TV docudrama (2019); Production: Metafilm, script and direction: Klaus T. Steindl

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Anna Bertha Königsegg . In: Austria Forum . Retrieved November 17, 2016.
  2. ↑ Countess Anna Bertha Königsegg . In: Salzburgwiki . Retrieved October 21, 2011.
  3. ↑ Portraits from the Austrian Resistance . In: Helga Thoma . Retrieved November 17, 2016.
  4. ↑ TV tip: “Sister Courage” on September 24th, ORF 2, 10:35 p.m. Retrieved October 2, 2019 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Königsegg, Anna Bertha
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Königsegg, Anna Bertha from
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian nun, nurse and resistance fighter against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH May 9, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigseggwald
DATE OF DEATH December 12, 1948
Place of death Salzburg