Maria von Bredow

Maria Gertrud Amalie Anna Elisabeth Countess von Bredow (born March 11, 1899 in Charlottenburg , † October 1, 1958 in Eldhagen) was a German farmer and politician.

Live and act

Maria von Bredow was the second daughter of the later general of the cavalry Anatol Graf von Bredow (* January 7, 1859 in Potsdam, † March 22, 1941 at Gut Seefeld) and Gertrud von Wedemeyer (* June 2, 1864, † August 23 1930 at Gut Seefeld), a daughter of Ludwig von Wedemeyer auf Schönrade and Klara von Langenn-Steinkeller . Her older sister was Catharina Adele Clara von Bredow (born February 15, 1894 in Schwedt).

After the end of the First World War , Bredow left Metz . She first lived in Posen until 1922 and then until 1945 as the owner of the Seefeld estate near Stargard in Pomerania , which her niece Maria von Wedemeyer , Dietrich Bonhoeffer's fiancée , later described as a "recognized Pomeranian sample". In addition to managing its good Bredow took the late 1920s, the study of law in that it in Berlin in 1930 with the graduation to the Dr. jur. completed. Politically, she belonged to the German National People's Party (DNVP) during the Weimar Republic .

Bredow first emerged politically in 1932 as the author of the brochure Hitler oder Papen? (Under the name Countess Bredow) published . , which was published by the Deutschnationalen Schriftenstelle in the run-up to the Reichstag elections in November 1932. In this pamphlet, which must have been written between October 14th and November 6th, 1932, she supported the policy of the Papen government, which she interpreted as the actual will-bearer of the people, despite its low support in the Reichstag, by making an analogy to the position of the Bismarck's government took place during the Prussian constitutional conflict in the years 1862 to 1866, in which he also had a large parliamentary majority against him. At the same time, she rejected Hitler as a questionable figure.

At the end of 1932 von Bredow became Franz von Papen's secretary through her cousin Hans von Wedemeyer . It is unclear whether she entered his service in the last phase of Papen's chancellorship or only after his resignation in early December 1932. It has been proven that in January 1933, together with Wedemeyer and Alexander Stahlberg , she formed Papen's political secretariat, which was housed in Papen's apartment at Wilhelmstrasse 74, which Papen still lived in after his resignation as Chancellor. She later stated that at the time she had intended to get Papen to refuse to collaborate with Hitler and the NSDAP. It was there that Bredow witnessed the negotiations that ultimately resulted in the joint formation of a government by Hitler and Papen on January 30, 1933.

In the course of the spring of 1933 Bredow left Papen's staff. She was no longer a member of the staff of the Vice Chancellery founded in April 1933.

When the apartment of the communist Edith Bodek , where Bredow was sublet in 1933, was searched by the SA as part of a house search, a document (Papen document) was found in Bredow's room that the Berlin SA leader Karl Ernst was a sign of the conservative Opposition to NS indicated. After leaving Papen, Bredow withdrew into a reserved private life on her estate in Pomerania: She rated Hitler's dictatorship as “the fulfillment of the longing of the German people who had been deprived of their pride and love by the loss of the sovereigns. "

In the further years of the Nazi dictatorship, Bredow's business continued to develop positively: In a business census in 1939, the estate was estimated to have a size of 263 hectares, 24 horses, 100 cattle and 320 pigs. In addition to her agricultural work, Bredow also began breathing medicine in the 1930s: For this purpose, she relocated a gymnastics school called “breathing, speaking and singing school” to her estate, where one can “breathe, speak and sing” pneumatologically correctly to walk, read, write, eat, cough, sneeze and laugh ”.

At the end of the war in 1945, Bredow fled Pomerania. Their property fell to the communist land reform. In August 1945 Bredow came to Stuttgart “with a backpack and a bicycle”. There she founded in 1947 together with Emma Lautenschlager what was officially licensed by the Allied occupation government on November 10, 1947 in the city and district of Ludwigsburg, the so-called New Party, of which she assumed the chairmanship. The party, whose members were mainly recruited from their former gymnastics students, organized Bredow from the Stuttgart garden house in which she lived at the time. She described the motivation for founding the new party with the slogan: “You cannot pour young wine into old bottles. In times of deep shock, something new must be born. ”She also emphasized the need to strengthen the feminine element in politics in order to create the moderation and balance which, in her view, was lacking in the past as a masculine one Exaggeration, which was the root of the extremes in the past. In terms of content, she wanted to position the New Party between the Social Democrats and Democrats: She advocated the socialization of certain monopoly companies, but also attached importance to the preservation of free enterprise. The party's further program revolved around peace and economic reorganization. Organizationally, Bredow turned against the idea of ​​a party bureaucracy, which she justified with the opinion that a party should never be an end in itself, but rather have the task of bringing experienced people into public offices so that they could work there for the benefit of the whole people.

In turn, she saw the party's task in reestablishing the principle of opposition by building up a strong opposition to the Württemberg state government, a task which the parties involved in the state government were unable to perform due to their membership in the government. In the Stuttgart municipal elections in December 1947, the New Party put the journalist Erich Brazel , a former employee of the Flammenzeichen , the Württemberg counterpart of the striker, as the top candidate. In the elections, the New Party received almost 9,000 votes, i. H. 4.2% of the votes cast, and thus received two seats in the Assembly of Representatives - Bredow withdrew from politics.

In the last years of her life, Bredow was the director of the Nepomuk School.

Fonts

• Reduction of the liability for damages as a result of legal relationships between the injured party and third parties. Dissertation. 1930.
• Do you believe in hitler 1932.
• Hitler or Papen? 1932. (under the name of Countess Bredow)

literature

• U. Kabitz: A marginal figure. From political engagement to therapy center. Maria Countess Bredow. In: ibg-Rundbrief. No. 62, June 2000, pp. 55-60.
• Maria Gräfin von Bredow , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 21/1948 of May 10, 1948, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

• Literature by and about Maria von Bredow in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Theodor Duesterberg: The steel helmet and Hitler. 1949, p. 39 notes Bredow's presence in Papen's office on the night of June 29-30 when he informed him of the rumors of an army coup led by Schleicher. Bredow's presence at the January negotiations is also confirmed by Herbert von Bose's diary , which Bredow mentions alongside Papen, Hugenberg, Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin, Otto Schmidt-Hannover and Wedemeyer as a participant in negotiations aimed at preventing a Hitler solution .
2. ↑ Heinz Brandt: A dream that cannot be kidnapped. My way between east and west. 1977, p. 115.
3. ^ Paul Schulz: The Saatzig district and the district-free city of Stargard. A Pomeranian homeland book. P. 232.
4. ^ Ruth-Alice von Bismarck: Bridal letters, cell 92. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Maria von Wedemeyer. 2001, p. 25.
5. ^ Richard Stöss: Party handbook. The parties of the Federal Republic of Germany. Volume 1, 1983, p. 826.
6. ↑ Erich Kuby: Facsimile cross section through the mirror. 1967, p. 48.
7. ↑ News of Germany. Volume 3. 1947, p. 15.
8. ^ Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung: Archive for Social History. Volume 25, 1985, p. 387.