Felicitas von Reznicek

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Felicitas von Reznicek (born January 18, 1904 in Charlottenburg ; † February 27, 1997 in Engelberg , Switzerland ) was a German writer and alpinist .

family

Felicitas von Reznicek was the daughter of the Austro-German composer Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek (Vienna 1860 - Berlin 1945) and the Berta Juillerat-Chasseur (* 1874 in the canton of Vaud ; † 1939 in Berlin). Felicitas' maternal grandmother, Amelie Haas (Stuttgart 1851 - Zurich 1928), came from the Haas Jewish banking family, who were active in southern Germany and converted to Christianity in 1857. Amelie's brother Hermann Haas was among other things the founder of Mannheimer Morgen . This was later taken over by Berta's father Arthur Juillerat-Chasseur (Rolle / Switzerland 1842 - Zurich 1917). Amelie's second brother, Hippolyt Haas (1855-1913), became an eminent geologist. His granddaughter Libertas Haas-Heye (1913–1942) married Harro Schulze-Boysen (1909–1942), the driving force behind the Red Orchestra, in 1936 . Both were executed in Plötzensee in 1942 . Also a second cousin (on the father's side) was the castle actress Ebba Johannsen (1899–1976). Felicitas von Reznicek was also the sister-in-law of Paula Struck-von Reznicek (née Heymann) (1895–1976), who was first married (1925–1931) to Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek's stepson and adoptive son, the sports reporter Burghard von Reznicek (1896 –1971) was married.

Life

Empire and Weimar Republic

Baroness Felicitas von Reznicek grew up as the daughter of the composer and conductor Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek in the artistic milieu in Charlottenburg. She got her first name from her godfather, the conductor Felix Mottl . At the age of twelve, she and her father began mountaineering in the Allgäu , followed by tours in the Engadin , Bernese Oberland and the Valais Alps , among others. a. Zinalrothorn and Castor - Pollux . After finishing school, she first tried to pursue the career of an opera singer. When she realized that her vocal skills would not be sufficient, she became a journalist who learned her trade at Ullstein-Verlag . She initially worked for various Berlin newspapers, soon also as an author of non-fiction and fiction. From 1928 onwards she increasingly took on the role of secretary and manager for her father. Felicitas was a hyperactive person with an above-average circle of friends. Politically, it wavered between the Center Party and the German Democratic Party in the 1920s . As a journalist, she had clear ideas about the intentions and goals of the NSDAP from the start .

"Third Reich"

As the daughter of a " half-Jewish " she tried to emigrate to Switzerland in March 1933, but was not given a work permit there despite her Swiss mother. So she returned to Berlin and, by the end of 1933, joined the resistance that was beginning around Rudolf Pechel , the editor of the Deutsche Rundschau . Her father's position in Berlin's cultural life on the one hand, and her own networking with the foreign press, made her an ideal person for passing on important information, especially since, as her father's manager, she had numerous opportunities to travel abroad. This is especially true for the period from 1934 to 1940, when this German delegate was in the "Permanent Council for International Cooperation of Composers". In connection with the Hamburg Council Music Festival in 1935, she made the acquaintance of Fritz Wiedemann , Adolf Hitler's adjutant at the time , who was to become the great love of her life. From then on she had access to the innermost circles of power in the Reich Chancellery (and Hitler knew where to call his adjutants if necessary). In individual cases she was able to achieve a lot through Wiedemann, for example the rapid departure of the daughter Bruno Walters , who was stuck in Vienna in 1938 after the Anschluss. It is of historical relevance that in 1937, before the Rhineland was reoccupied by the German Wehrmacht, Wiedemann told her about a secret order that the operation should be stopped immediately if troops were to be put on alert in Paris or London. Felicitas informed Pechel and the latter informed the British and French ambassadors in Berlin, who also passed this message on to their capitals. In retrospect it is clear that this would have been the last chance to stop Hitler.

In 1938, Wiedemann fell out of favor with Hitler and was transferred to San Francisco as consul . In addition, Felicita's mother died at the beginning of 1939, who as a “half-Jewish” was the most vulnerable family member. So Felicitas decided to go on a trip to the USA to visit Wiedemann, not without bringing important news to Paris beforehand. During this first trip she ventilated the career opportunities in the USA. She had hardly returned to Berlin when she received an offer to write for an American agency. She accepted the offer and was allowed to travel despite the outbreak of war. This time, however, she had to choose the route via Genoa, where she boarded the REX liner (on which Bruno Walter also traveled). Her way led her through Switzerland, where she stopped in Zurich. Pechel had her learn by heart an extensive message from Carl Friedrich Goerdeler after the latter was unable to continue his secret meeting with Arthur Young . Your contact was Heinz Ritter, well known in the specialist literature as "the Knight", who conveyed the message to London. In her memoir, Felicitas v. R. that she performed this act of high treason in full consciousness and in good conscience. Since then, the British secret service MI6 has regarded her as an agent over whom a protective hand was held. So Ritter achieved that the steamer off Gibraltar was only superficially checked. This time Felicitas had decided to stay in the USA as long as possible and therefore took her family jewelry, but also precious items from befriended Jewish families with her. After distributing it, she traveled from New York to San Francisco to see Wiedemann. Then there were conspiratorial meetings with an envoy from ex-President Herbert Hoover and the top representative of the British secret service in the USA, William Wiseman . Wiedemann would have been ready to defeat at the time, but that did not fit into the concept of US diplomacy. Probably because of these events, he was never charged at the Nuremberg trials . Felicita's account has recently been confirmed by Wiedemann's papers, which have become publicly available, as well as by eavesdropping records from the American secret service.

To Felicita's chagrin, after some time she received the order to return from Berlin and, out of consideration for her father, did not dare to openly ask for asylum in the USA. Instead, she took the opportunity to travel back to Berlin via Japan, China and the Trans-Siberian Railway. She processed her impressions in the book Weltfahrt im Kriege , which became a bestseller. In it, she describes with relish how she got caught in a grasshopper storm in California and how their crushed brown bodies made the tires almost unusable. This point aroused the suspicion of the Propaganda Ministry, which requested a change. Felicitas defended herself with the remark: "You have a subversive fantasy" (although the passage was meant exactly that way). Adam von Trott zu Solz saved the situation by taking the decision to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and approving the text on the grounds that this concerned foreign policy. The Propaganda Ministry returned the favor by ensuring that no paper could be supplied for further editions. Trott also made it possible for Felicitas to go on a reading trip to the Finnish-Russian front in 1942, which she took on the way back via Stockholm, where MI6 maintained a liaison office. The same applies to a trip to Switzerland in 1943. Meanwhile, Felicitas was not only active as a courier: Her masterpiece was probably that she had learned from a school friend in the Armaments Ministry that the actual production figures for aircraft did not match the figures reported to the Reich Chancellery . This was confirmed to her by the husband of her cousin Libertas and probably also by Ernst Udet , whom she met at a party the evening before his suicide and who drove her home. Naturally, this was information of strategic importance for the English, which made it understandable why Winston Churchill granted them English citizenship in 1951. A third person who deserves mention is the chief police officer in the Nazi state, Arthur Nebe . Nebe is judged very ambiguously in research today. He was undoubtedly involved in war crimes and after his arrest he undoubtedly betrayed many people who knew about the assassination attempt of July 20, 1944. However, he did not reveal to Felicitas, although he himself had visited her on July 19 and informed her that in the next few days "something would happen to the Führer ”. This gave Felicitas time to destroy all potentially incriminating documents. He had advocated her before that by releasing her from work so that she could write detective novels that put the work of the police in perspective. When the Gestapo files were stored in his office for some time, he took the opportunity to make the files on Felicitas disappear. This is the only way to explain that Felicitas managed not to arouse suspicion during an interrogation by the Gestapo after July 20, 1944. In fact, she was one of the very few people who knew who got away with her life.

post war period

Even after the Second World War, she worked for the British on the secret service, now against the GDR . In fact, she was the agent leader of Eberhard Plewe , who worked for both the British and the Americans and established contact with the GDR's first foreign minister, Georg Dertinger . When this connection was exposed at the end of 1953 and the two were arrested, Felicitas had to leave Berlin, otherwise she would have run the risk of being kidnapped to East Berlin. She found refuge in Switzerland, where the Bodmer family provided her with accommodation in Engelberg. In the first few years, however, she had great difficulties earning a living in Switzerland. Her situation improved when, in the early 1960s, she received back the US royalties for her father's works that had been requisitioned since 1941 and the family jewelry she had left there in 1940. (The then Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson had advocated it; the measure was formally justified with the Jewish grandmother). In addition, after reaching the age limit, she received a pension from the British secret service. So she was even able to travel the world again later.

Alpinism

In her later years, Reznicek was particularly committed to women alpinism . On the basis of extensive research on the history of women alpinism, her book From the Crinoline to the Sixth Degree was created. In 1968 she founded the international association of female alpinists Rendez-vous Hautes Montagnes RHM with alpinists from twelve countries on the summit of the Titlis near her place of residence Engelberg , which incidentally is organized according to the same principles as the “Permanent Council for the International Cooperation of the Composers ”, of which her father was the German delegate. During the Cold War, she also wanted female alpinists from eastern states to travel to the Alps. Her good relationships with politicians were helpful. It was not just about cultivating a hobby: the idea of ​​a rope team on a rock face is connected to the idea of ​​a community of fate, which for better or worse depends on the solidarity and camaraderie of the participants. Insofar as these attributes were previously only granted to men, female emancipation was almost completed for Felicitas in high alpine woman climbing.

She died in 1997 at the age of 93 in Engelberg, where she lived for many years. She was buried in Germany (Wedemark) at her own request.

Aftermath

The members of the German resistance against Hitler had a difficult time in the post-war period. In Germany they have been denounced as traitors to the people. The Allied victors also hesitated for a long time to even admit that there had been such resistance. That is understandable, as it did not fit the image of a people in need of collective re-education. That is why Felicitas von Reznicek remained silent about her role in the resistance for decades. It was only on her 90th birthday that she spoke of it in a short interview for the Luzerner Tagblatt and then only about the period up to 1945 (this was probably part of her obligation to the British secret service). She had already incorporated some information into her 1978–1980 but previously unpublished autobiography. It is to be hoped that one day in the distant future MI6 could decide to make further files public.

From Switzerland, Felicitas von Reznicek was a close observer of the situation in West Germany. The fact that so many were able to save their careers seamlessly from the “Third Reich” to the Adenauer era made them bitter. Her correspondence with her boyfriend from her youth, Axel Eggebrecht , shows how critical she was of developments in the 1980s. Due to the Vietnam War, she also distanced herself from the USA. On the other hand, she opened up to ecological thinking at an early stage. The peaceful reunification in 1989 seems to have given her access to Germany again.

To this day, you will look in vain for an honorable memory in the German Resistance Memorial Center, as well as for a plaque on your former apartment on Wilmersdorfer Strasse in Berlin-Charlottenburg.

General

She endeavored to take care of her father's legacy, particularly with the help of the American conductor Gordon Wright . She gradually handed over the remaining personal memorabilia from her father to the Austrian National Library. A Reznicek Society she set up in the USA seems to have ceased its activities in the meantime.

Works (selection)

  • I was there. Memoirs 1894–1954. Typescript 1978–1980 (in press).
  • First-hand news about the Hitler image. Construction , New York September 30, 1977, p. 5.
  • The crooked sky: cheerful and serious things from mountain villages and high valleys. Engelberg, Höchli 1974.
  • From the crinoline to the sixth grade. Verlag das Bergland-Buch, Salzburg / Stuttgart 1967.
  • Festival for the 150th anniversary of Engelberg near Obwalden. [Engelberg], [sn] [1965].
  • Engelberg's book: past and present of a health resort. Haupt Verlag, Bern 1964.
  • Gaston Rébuffat : Between heaven and pastures. Translated by Felicitas von Reznicek and Kaspar von Almen. Müller, Rüschlikon-Zurich 1963.
  • Josef Szigeti, Between the Strings: 6 decades as a violinist in a changing world. Translated by F. v. Reznicek. A. Müller, Rüschlikon-Zurich 1962.
  • Against the current: life and work of EN von Reznicek. Amalthea Verlag, Zurich 1960.
  • Helen Kieran Reilly: Fall out the window. Detective novel. Translated by Felicitas von Reznicek. A. Müller, Rüschlikon-Zurich Stuttgart Vienna 1960.
  • Edison Marshall: Addicted to the hunt. Translated by Felicitas von Reznicek. A. Müller, Rüschlikon-Zurich Stuttgart 1959.
  • Such is love. Sachon, Mindhelheim [1959].
  • Berlin interlude. Novel. Lippa-Fey publishing house, Berlin 1950.
  • Autobiographical sketch. Typescript. 1943 (in press).
  • Dedicated to Michael. Spiegel Verlag, Berlin-Friedenau 1943.
  • Shiva and the night of the 12th H. Hillger k.-g., Berlin [© 1943].
  • The woman on the edge. Spiegel Verlag Paul Lippa, Berlin 1943.
  • Eva and her son. Spiegel Verlag Paul Lippa, Berlin 1942.
  • The dovecote. Spiegel Verlag Paul Lippa, Berlin 1942.
  • World travel in war. Stalling, Oldenburg 1942.
  • Why the mountains? In: People and World. Germany's monthly book. Volume July 7, 1939. pp. 21-22. Publishing house Th. Oppermann, Hannover-Kirchrode 1939.
  • A train leaves Roman. Berlin German publisher 1938.
  • Felicitas von Reznicek, Kurt Seyfert: Bridge, Skat and light card games. Ullstein, Berlin 1933.
  • Haunted on the ocean. Union, Stuttgart Berlin Leipzig 1933.
  • Paula on the trail. Union, Stuttgart Berlin Leipzig 1932.
  • Laughing love. Fun little things. Spiegel Verlag Paul Lippa, Berlin 1931.
  • Felicitas von Reznicek-Ghika, Bertha von Reznicek, Hugh Tuite: The Pottleton Bridge Club: Its members, their game and their funeral speeches with some comments. O. Elsner, Berlin 1929.

literature

  • Michael Wittmann : Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek and the "Permanent Council for International Cooperation of Composers". Reznicek Studies 1, Musikverlag HM Fehrmann, Wedemark 2015.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christine Kopp : Felicitas von Reznicek - the mountaineering baroness. The Alps, magazine of the Swiss Alpine Club, 09/1997.
  2. ^ Joachim Scholtysek, Robert Bosch and the liberal resistance against Hitler 1933–1945. Munich 1999.
  3. ↑ Karin Steinbach Tarnutzer : The passion for climbing connects. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , September 20, 2013.
  4. ↑ Your role in the Derdinger case results from the trial files against Georg Derdinger and Eberhart Plewe, which are now being kept in the Stasi records authority. (Archive of the central office MfS AU 449/54 vol. 16).
  5. ^ Michael Wittmann : Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek and the "Permanent Council for International Cooperation of Composers". Wedemark 2015.
  6. ↑ Lucerne Latest News, January 18, 1994. More detailed in an interview with Lia Hörmann in Die Tirolerin.
personal data
SURNAME Reznicek, Felicitas von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and alpinist
DATE OF BIRTH January 18, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Charlottenburg
DATE OF DEATH February 27, 1997
Place of death Engelberg , Switzerland