Margarete von Hindenburg
Margarete von Beneckendorff and von Hindenburg (born September 20, 1897 in Groß Schwülper near Braunschweig , † December 22, 1988 in Bad Bevensen ) was the daughter-in-law of the German President Paul von Hindenburg . Due to the widower of her father-in-law, she took on the duties of First Lady of the German Republic from 1925 to 1932/33 .
Live and act
Margarete von Hindenburg, called Dete, was born in 1897 as Margarete Freiin von Marenholtz , the daughter of Gebhard Freiherr von Marenholtz (* August 2, 1862 in Groß Schwülper; † March 21, 1917 in Berlin) and his wife Margarete Adelheid Klementine (* 28. Born September 1866 on the Nordsteimke manor ; † September 26, 1943 on Groß Schwülper ). Through her mother, a born Countess von der Schulenburg and granddaughter of Werner von der Schulenburg-Wolfsburg , she was related to the noble family of the same name. She was also distantly related to the family of General von Hammerstein .
On May 10, 1921, she married Oskar von Hindenburg . He was the son of General Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, who had been Chief of the German General Staff in the second half of the First World War . The marriage produced three daughters and a son: Gertrud von Hindenburg (born November 8, 1922 in Hanover), Helga von Hindenburg (born January 17, 1924 in Hanover; † April 1, 1984 in Cologne), Hubertus von Hindenburg (* June 29, 1928 in Berlin; † February 4, 2016 in Essen) and Margarete von Hindenburg (* December 21, 1932 in Berlin). The family lived in Paul von Hindenburg's villa in Hanover from 1921 to 1925. Margarete von Hindenburg's relationship with her father-in-law was very close from the start: a contemporary observer described this by comparing her to Goethe's daughter-in-law Ottilie von Goethe .
When, in 1925, at the age of seventy-eight, Hindenburg was asked by representatives of the German political right to stand as their candidate for election to the office of Reich President, the latter made his approval dependent on the promise of his son and daughter-in-law; To accompany Wahl to Berlin and there “relieve him of all the worries of daily life and create a comfortable home for him”.
After Hindenburg was able to win a majority in the election of the head of state, his son and daughter-in-law accompanied him to Berlin, where they took quarters together in the official residence of the Reich President, the Reich President's Palace.
Since Hindenburg's wife Gertrud von Hindenburg had already died in 1921, the daughter-in-law was assigned the role of “lady of the house” in the Reichspräsidentischespalais. In this capacity she assumed representative duties at official lunches, tea hours, banquets and receptions in the house of the Reich President. There, as the official hostess at the side of the father-in-law, she received his guests. As the first woman in the house, she usually took the seat across from her father-in-law at large state dinners. As a rule, the most senior guest had the task of bringing them to the table - if no ambassadors were invited, the Chancellor. When a new diplomatic representative arrived in Berlin, she was the first woman in the President's household to officially introduce the new diplomat's wife to the corps of diplomats accredited in Berlin.
While Hans-Otto Meissner , who spent his childhood in the Reichspräsidentischespalais, emphasized Margarete von Hindenburg's “drive” and “resoluteness”, Bella Fromm described Hindenburg's daughter-in-law as a woman who “lacks elegance, bad taste in choosing in her wardrobe that is awkward and [unjustifiably] self-confident. ” A French diplomat characterized her as a“ fussy Prussian officer in a petticoat ”.
In the weeks after Hitler was appointed Chancellor on January 30, 1933, Ms. von Hindenburg helped spread the rumor that some generals around Hitler's predecessor as Chancellor, General Kurt von Schleicher, planned to form the Hitler government through a coup d'état , including the disempowerment and arrest of her father-in-law. The putsch, which was scheduled for January 30, believed Margarete von Hindenburg, was only prevented by the swift swearing in of the government on the morning of January 30. Full of indignation, she maintained repeatedly: " General von Hammerstein wanted to have the Reich President transported to Neudeck in a sealed cattle wagon!"
From 1934 Margarete von Hindenburg lived mainly with her husband on Gut Neudeck , the East Prussian ancestral home of the Hindenburg family in the Rosenberg district. She last appeared in public in 1945 when, shortly before the end of World War II, she led a trek consisting of eighteen wagons of 150 village and estate residents, including children evacuated from the west, across the icy Vistula to Lower Saxony in front of the advancing Red Army from East Prussia.
After the Second World War, Margarete von Hindenburg lived with her husband in Medingen near Bad Bevensen in Lower Saxony, where she died in 1988 at the age of 91. Her body was buried next to that of her husband in the Medinger forest cemetery.
Individual evidence
- ↑ L'Intermédiaire des Chercheurs et Curieux , 2004, p. 465.
- ^ Kunrat Hammerstein-Equord: Spähtrupp , 1964, p. 59.
- ↑ Gestalten Rings um Hindenburg , 1929, p. 17.
- ↑ Gestalten Rings um Hindenburg, Berlin 1929, p. 16.
- Jump up ↑ Young Years in the Reich President's Palace, 1987, p. 197.
- ↑ Bella Fromm: Blood and Banquets. A Berlin Social Diary , 2002, p. 17. In the original: “lacks elegance, dresses in bad taste, is awkward and self-conscious”.
- ↑ Bella Fromm: Blood and Banquets. A Berlin Social Diary , 2002, p. 17. Original: “[A] Prussian petty officer in petticoats”.
- ↑ Frankfurter Hefte , 1956, p. 170.
- ↑ Martin Lüders: The Soldier and the Empire: Paul von Hindenburg; Field Marshal General , 1961, p. 249.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hindenburg, Margarete von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German daughter-in-law of President Paul von Hindenburg and “first lady” of the German Republic |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 20, 1897 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Groß Schwülper near Braunschweig |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 22, 1988 |
| Place of death | Bad Bevensen |