Marie Eleonore zu Wied

Marie Eleonore zu Wied, called Manina zu Wied , full name Marie Eleonore Elisabeth Cecilie Mathilde Lucie (born February 19, 1909 in Potsdam , † September 29, 1956 in Miercurea Ciuc , Romania ) was a German noblewoman, political scientist and victim of the dictatorship in the People's Republic of Romania .

life and work

Marie Eleonore with her parents as a toddler

Marie Eleonore zu Wied was born in Potsdam as the daughter of Prince Wilhelm zu Wied and his wife Princess Sophie von Schönburg-Waldenburg . At that time her father was an officer in a Prussian regiment and her mother ran a salon in Potsdam , which was a focal point of social and cultural life. Her brother Prince Karl Viktor zu Wied, who later became the Hereditary Prince of Albania, was born in 1913 .

In October 1913, her father was offered to become Prince of the new Principality of Albania . In March 1914, she and her family moved to the new capital, Durazzo . However, after the outbreak of World War I, her father was no longer able to maintain himself as a prince, and they left Albania again on September 3, 1914.

Marie Eleonore, who was called Manina by her family and friends , spent her childhood and youth in her father's house on the Rhine and the property on her mother's side in Saxony and Romania. She later described stays at Monrepos Castle near Neuwied as the best times in her youth. Manina was a remarkably serious child and was a great lover of nature and animals; even a serious accident with horses in 1921 did nothing to change that. This later developed her interest in the natural sciences.

She received her education in a girls' high school in Munich , after which she studied agricultural sciences at the University of Hohenheim against her mother's wishes . After about a year she broke off this course to study economics and political science at the University of Berlin and at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn . In 1932 she received a scholarship for a year abroad at Oberlin College in Ohio, USA, because of her “excellent” achievements . The impressions gained during long journeys through the country and through personal contacts were a valuable enrichment for her. In 1934 she obtained recommendations for Joachim von Elbe from acquaintances in America, which made it easier for Joachim von Elbe to enter Germany after he had fled Germany during the Nazi era . In 1935 she passed her diploma exam , and on November 13, 1937 , she received her doctorate in law and political science with the title “ magna cum laude” . The topic of her dissertation was Foreign Capital in South America. A special case of the emergence of capitalist crises and the possibilities and attempts of a balancing economic policy .

On November 20, 1937, she married the 32-year-old Prince Alfred von Schönburg-Waldenburg , who came from the same aristocratic family as her mother. After that they lived in Droyssig . Her husband took as an officer of the Wehrmacht in World War II in part and died in 1941 in a military hospital of Zeitz at a had moved during his military service disease. Manina von Schönburg-Waldenburg moved to her father's home in Fontaneli Castle in Romania . Her mother died there in 1936. She also left Germany because she rejected National Socialism.

After Greater Romania took part in the Second World War on the Axis side in 1941 , she worked as a Red Cross nurse in hospitals in Bacau and Dnepropetrovsk . Her activity was interrupted by a physical and psychological breakdown from hard work. When the Red Army reached Romania, they were in the castle with their father only 100 kilometers behind the front. After Romania changed front , she and her father managed to flee to King Michael I in Sinaia shortly before the threat of arrest by the Soviet military . He gave them an apartment at Predeal from his property . Her father, whom she had been caring for for the past few months, died there in April 1945.

Then she moved to Bucharest ; it was impossible to leave Romania in the post-war period. Even as "relatives of the king" it was difficult to exist. After King Michael I abdicated in 1947 and went into exile, their livelihood problems worsened. She worked for the British Legation's press and information service in the hope of being able to travel with them. However, this did not come true and she was forced to stay in Bucharest. On February 5, 1948, she married Ion Bunea, a Romanian merchant and former president of the Galatz Chamber of Commerce . One of the reasons for marriage was certainly that she assumed that with a real name she would be less exposed to the inconvenience of the authorities. Together with her husband, shortly after the wedding, she planned to leave the country illegally in a group. Manina Bunea sold her jewelry to pay for the flight. They were betrayed and everyone involved was arrested. In February 1950 she was sentenced to 15 years of forced labor after a trial for "espionage and sabotage in favor of the Western powers" . Her husband also spent five years in a forced labor camp.

She was taken to a women's prison for political prisoners in the Carpathian Mountains, where, as during her subsequent prison term, she had to endure particularly harsh prison conditions because of her relatives to the former Romanian king. Later she was sent to a more strict detention center in Miercurea Ciuc. There she fell ill with pulmonary tuberculosis in early 1956 . Weakened by this, she died on September 29, 1956 after an intestinal operation. She was buried by fellow prisoners on the prison grounds. Her family members in Neuwied were only informed of her death in 1957.

memories

Joachim von Elbe wrote in his biography Unter Preußenadler und Sternenbanner - a life for Germany and America about Manina zu Wied that she was interested in people and their characters and fates, which was connected with kindness and sensitivity as well as a select politeness and consideration.

A German nun who had been imprisoned with her wrote about her in 1960 in the magazine Erbe und Einsatz that her being “shone right into our society, just, sincere, and attentive to the essential people, of a particularly great delicacy and Kindness to those who suffer ”. In all of them she saw the human being without distinction and “holding on to truth and truthfulness with passionate love, in all these years she has never passed a derogatory or unkind judgment”. It will remain a role model for everyone, as Manina von Wied managed to avoid any conversation when there was talk of alleged or real errors by third parties. Despite her poor health, she took everything on herself and never shied away from heavy or dirty work. She helped others - but never let herself be helped.

Works

• The foreign capital in South America. Waldenburg / Saxony 1937 (also dissertation at the University of Berlin)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Person Page. Retrieved March 2, 2017 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Bernd Willscheid: Manina zu Wied (1909–1956). In: Frauenbüro Neuwied (ed.): From woman to woman. Part II, Verlag Peter Kehrein, 1995, ISBN 3-9803266-5-9 , pp. 82-92
3. ↑ Joachim von Elbe: Under Prussian eagles and stars and stripes - a life for Germany and America. Bertelsmann, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-570-00166-0 , p. 17