Margarethe von Oven

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Margarethe von Oven , later Margarethe Countess von Hardenberg (born March 11, 1904 in Schöneberg near Berlin as Margarete Ottilie Alexandrine von Oven ; † February 5, 1991 in Göttingen ) was a German resistance fighter against the Nazi regime . As a secretary in the Bendler Block, she was an accessory to the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 .

origin

Her parents were the Prussian lieutenant colonel and commander of the Leibgarde Infantry Regiment (1st Grand Ducal Hessian) No. 115 Ludolf von Oven and his wife Margarete, née von Jordan. Her father died on August 22, 1914 in the First World War . She was born in her parents' apartment at Habsburgerstrasse 12. Margarethe von Oven grew up with three siblings.

Professional background

From 1920 Margarethe von Oven worked as a secretary in order to support her family financially. In 1925 she got a position in the Reichswehr Ministry and was transferred to Moscow for half a year in 1928 . Then she worked again in the Berlin Ministry. In 1938 she was deployed to Budapest and in 1940 she went to Lisbon as secretary of the military attaché .

time of the nationalsocialism

She later worked as secretary for Colonel General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord and Colonel General Werner Freiherr von Fritsch in the Bendler Block. In the summer of 1943, Henning von Tresckow requested it for his office. He had complete confidence in her because she had been his wife's best friend from childhood. Through him Margarethe von Oven was drawn into the preparations for July 20, 1944 and became an accomplice. When Tresckow went back to the front, Margarethe von Oven, who worked as a secretary in the command of Army Group Center , became his messenger for the Berlin conspirators. She typed orders and orders that, as Operation Valkyrie, prepared the later coup. It was not uncommon for Tresckow and Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg to meet outside the Bendler Block in the summer and autumn of 1943 to discuss and improve the orders with Margarethe von Oven, so that the conspiratorial intent was by no means hidden from her.

After the failure of the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944, she was imprisoned for two weeks. She then returned to her office. She remembered:

“It's actually strange that I haven't lost any friends because of the resistance that had stigmatized me for months. Normally, part of the circle of friends should have fallen away immediately. And so I realized that it was just no coincidence that the friends I was really connected with understood me and didn't throw a stone at me. Whether someone was a Nazi or not had an internal reason. "

After the war

After the war, Margarethe von Oven worked temporarily in Switzerland and then in Germany as an office assistant. In 1954 she became an employee of the property management of the House of Brandenburg-Prussia. In 1955 she married Count Wilfried von Hardenberg, with whom she first lived in Hardegsen and then in Göttingen. She died there on February 5, 1991.

Honors

In honor of the resistance fighter Margarethe Countess von Hardenberg, a memorial plaque was unveiled in 2016 in Göttingen at Dahlmannstrasse 1.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Birth register StA Schöneberg I, No. 597/1904
  2. ↑ warning against right: Stauffenberg - Hitler Years ( Memento from November 7, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on July 21, 2008)
  3. ↑ Patricia Hecht: Female Oppositionists in the Nazi Era: "Displaced, Forgotten, Ignored" . In: The daily newspaper: taz . June 28, 2019, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed June 29, 2019]).
  4. ↑ Gerd R. Ueberschär : Stauffenberg: July 20, 1944. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-10-086003-9 , p. 107.
  5. ↑ Quotation from worldroots.com ( Memento from October 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Search word "Oven" with reference to Dorothee von Meding: With the courage of the heart.
  6. ↑ a b Operation Walküre: memorial plaque for a resistance fighter from Göttingen. October 9, 2016, accessed June 29, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Oven, Margarethe von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH March 11, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin-Schöneberg
DATE OF DEATH 5th February 1991
Place of death Goettingen