Maria von Wedemeyer

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Maria von Wedemeyer (born April 23, 1924 in Pätzig , Königsberg district (Neumark) ; † November 16, 1977 in Boston ), Maria Schniewind married from 1949 (divorced 1955), Maria Weller married from 1959 (divorced 1965), was a German Computer scientist and manager , who is best known today as the fiancée of the Protestant theologian and resistance fighter against National Socialism Dietrich Bonhoeffer .

Live and act

Maria von Wedemeyer's copy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's poem From Good Powers

Maria Friederike von Wedemeyer was born in 1924 as the daughter of the landowner Hans von Wedemeyer- Pätzig from New Markia and his wife Ruth, née von Kleist . Her maternal grandmother was Ruth von Kleist-Retzow , where she met Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Other relatives came from noble Prussian families, including the von Bismarck family .

Wedemeyer grew up on her parents' estate in Pätzig in Neumark . On January 13, 1943, she became engaged to the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was 18 years her senior, with whom her older brother had already had confirmation classes. After examination by Bonhoeffer, she had been refused this because of “immaturity”. Shortly after the engagement, on April 5, 1943, Bonhoeffer was arrested.

She died of cancer in 1977 at the age of 53 at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.

The urn with the ashes of Maria von Wedemeyer was buried in the family grave of the Wedemeyers in Gernsbach , where a plaque by the sculptor Andreas Helmling on the cemetery chapel has commemorated her since September 2009 .

Professional background

After World War II, Wedemeyer studied in Göttingen and since 1948 at Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia / USA Mathematics . There she completed her studies in 1950 with a Master of Arts . She first worked as a statistician , then in the computer industry at Remington Rand Univac in Philadelphia and later at Honeywell in Boston , where she was promoted to managerial positions. In 1974 she gave a lecture on decompiler development at the Association for Computing Machinery conference .

Personal

In 1949 she married Paul-Werner Schniewind (born 1923), a son of the theologian Julius Schniewind . The marriage, which had two sons, ended in divorce in 1955. His marriage to American factory owner Barton Weller in 1959 failed in 1965.

Notoriety

Wedemeyer became known to a broader public when, 15 years after her death, the correspondence she had had with her imprisoned fiancé was published by her older sister Ruth-Alice von Bismarck (wife of Klaus von Bismarck ). Wedemeyer had already published a selection in English in 1967 under the title The other letters from prison in the American theological journal of the Union Theological Seminary .

The letters and manuscripts in her possession ( Faithfully and quietly surrounded by good forces , Jonah , The Death of Mose , Past ) Bonhoeffer had given them to the Houghton Library at Harvard University in 1966 , where their use was subject to restrictions until 2002.

Works

  • Maria von Wedemeyer-Weller: The other letters from prison. In: Union Seminary Quarterly Review 23 (1967), pp. 23-29
also in: Peter Vorkink (Ed.): Bonhoeffer in a World Come of Age. Phildalphia: Fortress 1968, pp. 103-113
and as an appendix in: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Letters and Papers from Prison. 4th edition 1971, pp. 411-419
  • Maria F. Weller: A pragmatic look at decompilers. In: Proceedings of the 1974 annual ACM conference. Volume 2, p. 753

literature

  • Ruth-Alice von Bismarck, Urich Kabitz (ed.): Bridal letters, cell 92 - Dietrich Bonhoeffer / Maria von Wedemeyer 1943–1945. CH Beck, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-406-36795-X .
  • Wolfgang Seehaber: Maria von Wedemeyer - Bonhoeffer's fiancée. Brunnen Verlag, Basel 2012.
  • Renate Wind: love as productive force. In: Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Freedom is in fact alone. Publik-Forum Dossier; Publik-Forum Verlagsgesellschaft, Oberursel March 2005.
  • Paavo Rintala: Mary's love. A biographical novel. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2006, ISBN 3-374-02363-0 .
  • Renate Wind: Who still has a real longing today? Maria von Wedemeyer and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2006, ISBN 3-579-07124-6 .
  • Birgit Schlegel: Maria von Wedemeyer, descendant of Katlenburger officials and bride Dietrich Bonhoeffer . In: Northeimer Jahrbuch 82.2017, pp. 115–124

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Maria Frisé : My Silesian family and I. Memories . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-351-02577-7 , p. 134.
  2. ↑ See her letter of January 13th to Bonhoeffer and his answer on January 17th in the so-called bride letters .
  3. ↑ New York Times, November 17, 1977, available online (accessed February 8, 2018)
  4. ↑ Memorial plaque for Maria von Wedemeyer-Weller. In: IBG circular. No. 90, November 2009, pp. 59f.
  5. ^ ACM Digital Library
  6. ↑ German: The other letters from prison ; the title is a slightly provocative allusion to the English title of resistance and surrender : Letters and Papers from Prison
  7. ↑ Finding aid entry
personal data
SURNAME Wedemeyer, Maria von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schniewind, Maria; Weller, Maria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German computer scientist and manager
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Pätzig , district of Königsberg (Neumark)
DATE OF DEATH November 16, 1977
Place of death Boston