Amelie Posse

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Amelie Posse around 1948; Portrait photo with personal dedication by Amelie Posse from February 5, 1948

Amelie Posse-Brázdová (born February 11, 1884 in Stockholm , † March 3, 1957 ) was a Swedish author , activist against National Socialism in World War II and refugee aid worker .

Life

Amelie Posse's parents were the railway entrepreneur Count Fredrik Arvidsson Posse (born July 17, 1851 in Charlottenlund; † August 22, 1897 in Ramlösa ) and Auda Gunhild Wennerberg (March 3, 1860 in Skara ; † November 30, 1925 in Tumba ). Her grandfathers were the Swedish Prime Minister Arvid Posse and the Swedish poet, composer and politician Gunnar Wennerberg . She grew up with her two younger brothers Arvid Posse (born January 26, 1885 in Stockholm) and Mauritz Posse (born March 15, 1887 in Malmö) on Maryhill near Ålabodarna . When her father died in 1897, the family moved to Lund and became financially dependent on their grandfather Gunnar Wennerberg.

Posse knew early on that she wanted to turn her artistic inclinations into a profession, either in the field of music, the fine arts or literature. She spoke several languages ​​from a young age. At first she wanted to become a pianist, but this failed because of a rheumatic disease. She then turned to painting and studied in Copenhagen until 1904 .

Posse married the criminal psychologist Andreas Bjerre on June 23, 1904 in Lund Cathedral , with whom she had a son. The marriage ended in divorce in 1912. After the divorce, Posse went to Rome to devote himself to art.

Italy

In Rome Posse met the Czech artist Oskar (called Oki) Brázda . They lived together from 1914 to 1915 in Studio No. 1 of Villa Strohl-Fern . Posse and Brázda married on May 29, 1915. They had two sons, Bohuslav (Slavo) Brázda (born September 13, 1916; † 1991; pilot of the RAF , later a hotelier) and Jan Brázda (born December 4, 1917; † 2012; artist). In order to be able to marry Braźda, Posse had taken Austrian citizenship. Italy entered the First World War on May 23, 1915 on the side of the Entente . As citizens of an enemy state, the couple were interned in Alghero on Sardinia until 1916 . After that they lived in Rome. There they had contact with Czech emigrants , including Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and Edvard Beneš .

Czechoslovakia

Because of the takeover of Mussolini the couple in 1925 moved to the Czechoslovakia . In the same year, at the time of the agrarian reform, Brázda's family bought the Líčkov Castle near Žatec (Saaz) in the German-speaking part of northern Bohemia . The couple had the dilapidated castle renovated and extensively rebuilt. They exported hops to Sweden and made Litschkau a kind of cultural center. Among her guests were the author and feminist Elin Wägner and Prince Eugen of Sweden . Posse became known during her time in Czechoslovakia for her work as a democrat and pacifist and was friends with the Czechoslovak President Masaryk, whom she knew from her time in Rome. As a result of the Munich Agreement , Litschkau Castle was on German territory from October 1938. Posse had spoken out clearly against National Socialism in a series of newspaper articles . She therefore had to leave Litschkau Castle and went to Prague . There she helped refugees to leave the country. In order not to endanger her husband, the couple divorced in 1939. Oki Brázda lived another year in the castle, which was plundered by the Germans after the annexation of the Czech Republic and then fell into disrepair.

Sweden

Posse had to leave Prague in a hurry in March 1939 after the Gestapo issued an arrest warrant for her. She went back to Sweden and applied for Swedish citizenship again. In Sweden she continued her work in support of refugees. Through her relationships, she saved the lives of thousands. Through her experiences in Czechoslovakia, she knew that it was important to set up resistance cells before a possible occupation by Nazi Germany . On Tuesday, April 9, 1940, she was one of the founders of the debating club Tisdagsklubben (German Tuesday Club ) in Stockholm. This was formally a culture debating club, but its real purpose was to work against the spread of National Socialism in Sweden. The club happened to be founded on the same day that Nazi Germany occupied Sweden's neutral neighboring countries Norway and Denmark as part of the Weser Exercise company . Tisdagsklubben became the center of the Swedish resistance movement in the event that Sweden were also occupied by Nazi Germany. Like other members of the club, Amelie Posse was included in the list of "unreliable Swedes" in German files. The Swedish security police observed the Tisdagsklubben and summoned Posse several times. One of her sons had got hold of documents about the formation of National Socialist cells in Sweden. Posse submitted this to the authorities, but they did not respond. She then forwarded the documents to the editor Ture Nerman , who published them in his high-circulation newspaper Trots! published. Posse was also the representative of Nansenhilfe for refugees and stateless persons in Sweden.

post war period

Church and cemetery in Odensvi , the final resting place of Amelie Posse

After the war she returned to Czechoslovakia. After the Potsdam Conference , Czechoslovakia received permission to expel the German population. Posse campaigned against the expulsion of the Germans from Czechoslovakia . At the time of the February revolution in 1948, when the Communist Party came to power in Czechoslovakia, Posse was in Sweden. She traveled back, in particular to find out about President Beneš's position. He had always said that he would not bow to the communists, but later withdrew from this stance. Posse saw him as an integrating figure in Czechoslovakia and wanted to support him. Unfortunately, Beneš died in September 1948. Posse was warned that the new rulers had issued an arrest warrant against her and left Czechoslovakia. She never saw the country and Oki Brázda again. Litschkau Castle was expropriated.

Posse lived in Sweden in her final years. She went on another vacation trip to Italy.

Amelie Posse died in 1957 and was buried next to her grandfather Gunnar Wennerberg in the cemetery near the church in Odensvi . An obituary reads “ Eftervärlden kommer att söka grevinnan Posse inte så mycket i Sveriges aristocratic calendar. Hon hör främst hemma i Frihetens ”( Ture Nerman , German:" Posterity will not look so much for Countess Posse in Sweden's aristocratic calendar. She comes primarily from the House of Freedom. ")

A small museum with memorabilia from Amelie Posse is located in the pump house in Örenäs Castle , near Posse's destroyed childhood home Maryhill near Landskrona in southern Sweden.

Works (selection)

Amelie Posse has written numerous articles on current topics. Her books, however, are entirely autobiographical. They not only show her diverse and dramatic life stories, but also offer an insight into European history in the first half of the 20th century. Her work has been translated into English, Danish, German and Czech.

  • The oförlikneliga fångenskapen. (German: Sardinia - a sunny captivity. ) 1931.
  • Friheten the brokiga. 1932.
  • Ned med vapnen! En kampsignal mot kriget. 1935.
  • Vidare. 1936.
  • I begynnelsen var ljuset. 1940.
  • Bygga upp, ej riva neder. 1942.
  • Slap Mellan. 1946.
  • Kring kunskapens trad. 1946.
  • Kunskapens träd i blom. 1946.
  • Åtskilligt can only be done. 1949.
  • Minnenas park. 1954.
  • När järnridån föll över Prague. Edited posthumously in 1968 by Barbro Alving

literature

  • Rune Bokholm: Tisdagsklubben. Om glömda antinazistiska sanningssägare i svenskt 30- och 40-valley . Atlantis förlag, Stockholm 2001, ISBN 91-7486-561-7 (Swedish).
  • Hans Levander: Posse-Brázdová, Amelie . In: Torsten Dahl (Ed.): Svenskahaben och kvinnor. Biography uppslagsbok . Albert Bonniers Förlag, Stockholm 1949 (Swedish).
  • Britta Lövgren: Posse, Amelie. In: Göran Nilzén (Ed.): Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon. Volume 143: Piper – von Post. Stockholm 1996, OCLC 186017178 (Swedish).
  • Eva Strömberg Krantz: En ande som hear jorden till: en bok om Amelie Posse. Carlsson, Stockholm 2010, ISBN 978-91-7331-321-6 (Swedish).

Web links

Commons : Amelie Posse  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Posse. In: freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com. Retrieved August 4, 2016 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Amelie Posse. In: Svenskt Biografiskt Lexicon. Retrieved August 4, 2016 (Swedish).
  3. ↑ Swedish National Encyclopedia . tape 15 , 1994, ISBN 91-7024-619-X , pp. 237 (Swedish).
  4. ^ Maria-Pia Boëthius : Heder och samvete . 1st edition. Norstedts, 1991, ISBN 978-91-1894142-9 (Swedish).
  5. ↑ Amelie Posse-museet. In: greater-copenhagen.net. Retrieved August 4, 2016 (Swedish).
personal data
SURNAME Posse, Amelie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Posse-Brázdová, Amelie (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swedish author, activist against National Socialism and refugee worker
DATE OF BIRTH February 11, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Stockholm
DATE OF DEATH March 3, 1957