Erika Countess von Brockdorff

Erika von Brockdorff

Erika Countess von Brockdorff born. Schönfeldt (born April 29, 1911 in Kolberg , Pomerania Province , † May 13, 1943 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was a German resistance fighter . She belonged to the resistance movement of the Red Chapel .

Life

Erika Schönfeldt came from Kolberg on the Baltic coast of Pomerania . From 1929, after completing secondary school and a housekeeping school, she worked in Berlin as a domestic worker and office worker. In 1937 she married the visual artist Cay-Hugo Graf von Brockdorff and shortly afterwards her daughter Saskia was born.

She worked as an employee in the Reich Office for Occupational Safety and Health and in the German Industrial Safety Museum in Berlin-Charlottenburg .

From 1941 Erika Countess von Brockdorff made her apartment at Wilhelmshöher Strasse 17 available to the resistance group around Hans Coppi for radio experiments. On September 16, 1942, she was arrested and taken to the Charlottenburg women's prison at Kantstrasse 79. She was sentenced to ten years in prison by the Reich Court Martial. At Hitler's insistence , the sentence was commuted to a death sentence in January 1943 . On the evening of May 13, 1943, she and 13 other people were beheaded in Berlin-Plötzensee prison .

Honors

In 1969 she was posthumously awarded the Soviet Order of the Patriotic War .
On October 3, 1985, the municipal vocational school II (today the old trade school ) in Leipzig - Kleinzschocher was named "Erika von Brockdorff"
On May 25, 2011, the eastern forecourt at Berlin Südkreuz train station was named after her.

Wilhelmshöher Strasse 17
Stumbling stone in front of the house, Wilhelmshöher Strasse 17, in Berlin-Friedenau
Erika-Gräfin-von-Brockdorff-Platz
Entrance sign to the municipal vocational school KBS II "Erika von Brockdorff", 1987, today the old trade school Leipzig

literature

Gilles Perrault : On the trail of the Red Chapel . (Revised edition), Rowohlt 1994
Gert Rosiejka: The Red Chapel. "Treason" as an anti-fascist resistance. - With an introduction by Heinrich Scheel . results publisher: Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-925622-16-0 .

Web links

Commons : Erika Gräfin von Brockdorff - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

German Resistance Memorial Center
Interview Joachim Scholtyseck with her daughter Saskia in: Eva Madelung , Joachim Scholtyseck : Heldenkinder, traitorkinder. When parents were in resistance. , Beck 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-56319-5 , pages 166 - 180. Partly online via Google Books.

Individual evidence

↑ Brigitte Oleschinsk: Plötzensee Memorial , p. 28 (PDF)
^ New Germany from December 23, 1969

personal data
SURNAME	Brockdorff, Erika Countess of
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Schönfeldt, Erika (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German resistance fighter in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH	April 29, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH	Kolberg , Pomerania Province
DATE OF DEATH	May 13, 1943
Place of death	Berlin

[1] Brigitte Oleschinsk: Plötzensee Memorial , p. 28 (PDF)

[2] New Germany from December 23, 1969