Birgitta Wolf

Birgitta Wolf (2007)

Birgitta Wolf von Rosen (born February 4, 1913 in Helgesta , Sweden ; † April 25, 2009 in Murnau am Staffelsee ) was a Swedish publicist living in Germany who was best known for taking care of prisoners.

prehistory

Born as Countess Birgitta von Rosen at Rockelstad Castle in Sweden , she married in 1933 and moved in with her German husband. As the niece of Carin Göring , Hermann Göring's first wife , she had good contacts with this and other greats of the Nazi state. However, she soon began to campaign for prisoners and concentration camp inmates.

Prisoner Care

Since 1945, the care of prisoners became her main focus. Her correspondence with prisoners (approx. 60,000 letters) is now in the archive of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research . Their help consisted of good encouragement and advice, but also visits to the institution and personal intervention with the institution directors and supervisory authorities. In the media she was at times referred to as the "angel of the prisoners". Together with Erika Sprenger-Steinmüller, she founded the Nothilfe Birgitta Wolf eV association, which will continue her work after her death.

Public protest

Wolf also represented the prisoners' cause in journalism. She gave lectures, wrote essays and books and drew attention to the grievances she had perceived in radio and television programs. In 1970 she started a campaign against increased arrest (without a mattress, with water and bread, etc.), which at that time was still one of the self-evident means of disciplining the German penal system. This campaign led to the fact that the prison law renounced the more stringent arrest . Birgitta Wolf responded to the initial solitary confinement with RAF members in autumn 1974 with a 27-day hunger strike.

Works (selection)

• The fourth caste. Young people in prison. Literary documents . Edited by Birgitta Wolf. Hamburg 1963.
• The prisoner. Dangers of its isolation . In: Dietrich Rollmann (Ed.) Prison in Germany. Situation and reform. Frankfurt 1967, pp. 160-170.
• Statement. Letters from prisoners. With an orientation from Birgitta Wolf . Munich 1968.
• Charged. Poems and graphics by prisoners , ed. by Birgitta Wolf, Gelhausen / Berlin 1972.
• Speech in Fuhlsbüttel. On the suicide of Heinz-Detlev Krieger and Hans Rohrmoser (1976), reprinted in: Kurt Kreiler (Hrsg.) Innen-Welt. Communication texts of prisoners. Frankfurt 1979, pp. 28-30.
• Correspondence between Peter Schönwiese and Birgitta Wolf . In: Kurt Kreiler (ed.) Inner world. Communication texts of prisoners. Frankfurt 1979, pp. 31-71.
• Without a star: Christmas the outsider . Edited by Birgitta Wolf. Berlin 1981.
• End of Retribution - Utopia? Consequential measures instead of punishment . In: Helmut Ortner (Ed.) Freedom instead of punishment. Appeals for the abolition of prisons. Frankfurt 1981, pp. 14-32.
• Fallet Alexander: ett beslagtaget barn [Alexander: a confiscated child], Stockholm 1986.
• “There is no fairy coming” - biographical remarks about the work with prisoners . In: Uta Klein / Helmut H. Koch (ed.) Prisoner literature. Hagen 1988, pp. 14-28.
• Poems from a life as a biography . Munich 1998.

Awards

• 1971 Fritz Bauer Prize
• 1985 Federal Cross of Merit, First Class
• 1996 Courage Prize of the Green Group in the Bavarian State Parliament

Web links

• Literature by and about Birgitta Wolf in the catalog of the German National Library
• Emergency aid Birgitta Wolf e. V.
• Little obituary
• Biographical note (in French) ( Memento of January 2, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
• Obituary by Gero Lenhardt for Brigitta Wolf

Literature (also source)

• Christian Pfeiffer, the ombudswoman of the German penal system. Obituary for Birgitta Wolf , in: Forum Strafvollzug 3/2009, pp. 149–152.