Dorothy Woodman

Dorothy Victoria A. Woodman (born January 14, 1902 in Startley, Wiltshire , † September 1970 ) was a British political activist.

Life

Woodman was the daughter of a farmer in Wiltshire. As a school girl she learned Sanskrit. She later studied the language at Exeter University and graduated from University College London.

Woodman, who was feminist and socialist, later worked for the Women's International League.

Politically, Woodman belonged to the Independent Labor Party (ILP) for which she ran unsuccessfully for the House of Commons.

From 1928, Woodman served as secretary of the Union for Democratic Control . This was founded in 1914 as a pacifist organization to promote the end of the First World War through a mutual agreement. Under the leadership of Woodman, it developed into a strongly anti-fascist propaganda and information organization for a few years in the 1930s.

From 1933 onwards, Woodman saw the main threat to European peace in the National Socialist regime that was being established in Germany that year: In autumn 1933, she attended the Reichstag fire trial in Leipzig as an observer. Together with other intellectuals such as John Maynard Keynes and HG Wells, she signed a petition to the German government for the release of the defendants in this process and visited the Bulgarian politician Dimitrov, who was accused of organizing the Reichstag fire, in the Leipzig prison, to which she was able to penetrate by defending herself as issued his mistress.

In 1934 and 1935, Woodman informed the British public in several works as an author and editor about the massive rearmament that was being carried out in Germany under the aegis of the National Socialists at that time and supported their statements by the publication of relevant documentary material . These works were published in German by the Paris publisher Editions du Carrefour , so that they were widely distributed among émigré circles. Woodman linked her publications on the rearmament carried out under Hitler in Germany with the prognosis that the Nazi state would start a new European war if he did not fall into his arms in time.

Her attempts to mobilize the British (and international) public against the Nazi regime in Germany in general and against the rearmament and preparation for war in Germany in particular led to her being targeted by the police forces of the Nazi dictatorship, which she called important target person: In the spring of 1940, the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a list of people who the Nazi surveillance apparatus considered particularly dangerous or important, which is why they should be in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht should be identified and arrested by the SS special commandos following the occupation forces with special priority.

With reference to the non-European area, the Union for Democratic Control advocated the release of the (Asian) overseas colonies of the European great and central powers into independence as well as support for China against the aggression of Japan on the East Asian mainland, which continued to intensify in the 1930s a.

After the Second World War, Woodman campaigned for Indonesia's independence from the Netherlands. During this time, she emerged as a journalist by publishing several works on Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia and Burma.

Since the 1930s Woodman was the partner of Kingsley Martin , editor of the influential magazine New Statesman at the time , as whose wife she is often mistakenly considered in literature.

Fonts

• Patriotism Ltd. An Exposure of the War Machine , 1933.
• Hitler drives to war. Documentary revelations about Hitler's secret armament , ed. by Dorothy Woodman, Éditions du Carrefour, Paris 1934. (in English: Hitler Rearms: An Exposure of Germany's War Plans , London 1934).
• Hitler's air fleet ready to go , Editions du Carrefour, Paris 1935.
• Europe Rises. The Story of Resistance in Occupied Europe , London 1943;
• Japan. The Problem of Asia , 1944.
• Facing Facts in Formosa: A Challenge to Peace , 1951.
• Dorothy Woodman Talks about Indonesia, in: Indonesian Affairs 1 (7), pp. 1–8.
• The Republic of Indonesia , 1955.
• The Making of Burma , London 1962.
• Himalayan Frontiers , New York 1969.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Census of England and Wales, 1911, Wiltshire, Great Somerford, 13, 8; National Registration Transcript Book, 1939, Holborn, 13/1, AKNY.