Melita Maschmann

Melita Maschmann (born January 20, 1918 in Berlin ; † 2010 ) was a German writer who became known mainly because of her autobiographical account of her time as leader of the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM).

Life

Maschmann joined the BDM at the age of 15. She completely succumbed to National Socialist propaganda and quickly rose to leadership positions. Until 1937 she was friends with Marianne Schweizer, who came from a "half-Jewish" family. In autumn 1937 she denounced the family to the Gestapo and made sure that Marianne's mother and sister were imprisoned for some time.

In 1941 Maschmann became a BDM leader in the Warthegau and at the same time completed an internship with the East German observer . From the spring of 1942, she ran a RAD camp for labor maids near Posen . In 1943 she became the press manager of the BDM. Her parents were killed in a bomb attack in 1944, which led to a certain estrangement from the Nazi regime.

At the beginning of July 1945, Maschmann was arrested together with Jutta Rüdiger in a hiding place in Zell am See and interned in Ludwigsburg women's camp 77. After her release in 1948, she again sought contact with her half-Jewish childhood friend, but she did not respond to the contact attempts until many years later. In 1955 Maschmann published the novel The Word was called Love about a war returnee who was captured after a short marriage. When he returned to his wife after 15 years, he found out that she was raising a "black cuckoo egg" next to his son. His only wish is to find out who the child's mother really is.

After two other novels, she published her best-known work, an autobiography in the form of a long letter to an unnamed Jewish childhood friend, under the title Conclusion: No attempt at justification . She was the first to tell a "story of taking part", which other former BDM members also did later, such as Renate Finckh, Ursula Mahlendorf, Carola Stern , Eva Sternheim-Peters , Lore Walb , Margarete Hannsmann , Christa Wolf and Eva Zeller .

In autumn 1963 Maschmann corresponded about her manuscript with the writer Ida Friederike Görres , who provided the foreword to the first edition, and the well-known political scientist Hannah Arendt . Shortly after its publication, she moved to India , where she had previously traveled in 1962. She took an Indian name and became a follower of Sri Anandamayi Ma , who was venerated as a "living saint". She stayed there for the rest of her life and only returned to Germany for family visits every few years.

Finding the childhood friend

In her book Growing up Female in Nazi Germany (2006) Dagmar Reese followed a trail of Irmgard Klönne that led to Maschmann's Jewish childhood friend Marianne Schweitzer, who meanwhile lived in California . She was friends with Maschmann from 1933 to 1936, although Maschmann's growing fanaticism increasingly alienated the young women from one another. In 1937 Maschmann was sent to boarding school, either to better prepare for the Abitur (as the teacher Schweitzer explained) or to limit her Nazi activities, as Maschmann himself wrote. When Maschmann returned to Berlin in 1938 , she observed the Schweitzer family for the Gestapo , who suspected they were active in the resistance. In fact, the mother and sister were arrested, and Marianne and her father fled to England after the so-called Kristallnacht in 1939 . After her release in 1948, Maschmann found Schweitzer and wrote her several letters over the years. When Schweitzer was invited to Germany in 1963 at the invitation of the Goethe Institute , she persuaded Maschmann to meet her. Maschmann presented her with the manuscript of Conclusion , and what followed was a conversation that was confusing for Schweitzer. Then she broke off contact, although Maschmann continued to write to her from India.

Reception of conclusion

Maschmann's autobiography was reprinted eight times until 1987, in 1979 with a new afterword by Helga Grebing . It has also been translated into several languages:

• Ma Jeunesse au service du nazisme (Paris: Plon, 1964).
• Account rendered: A dossier on my former self (New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1964).
• Balance: Geen poging totrechtvaardiging (Antwerp: De Goudvink, 1965).
• Bilans (Kraków: Mireki, 2005).

The autobiography has been used as a source by historians, e.g. B. by Irmgard Klönne, Daniel Goldhagen and Claudia Koonz. Tamara Ramsay wrote a manuscript about Maschmann and her book, but it remained unpublished. The autobiography has also been widely analyzed in the scientific literature, e.g. B .:

• Saul Robinsohn: On National-Socialist Education, in: Comparative Education , Vol. 2, No. 3 (1966): 225-232
• Virginie Schneider: National Socialism in the Autobiography: Melita Maschmann: Conclusion. No attempt at justification. Mein Weg in der Hitlerjugend Strasbourg, 1993, OCLC 493606424 (Dissertation (Mém. Maitr.) Université de Strasbourg 2, Etudes allemandes, 1993, 114 pages).
• Caroline Schaumann: Women Revisit the "Third Reich": Autobiographical Writings by Melita Maschmann, Christa Wolf, and Eva Zeller, in: Glossen: An International Bilingual Publication on Literature, Film, and Art in German-Speaking Countries after 1945 , Volume 6 (1999 ).
• Holly Andrea Liu: Re-writing the National Socialist Past: Melita Maschmann & The Anatomy of Denial , San Francisco 2005, OCLC 64548889 (Dissertation San Francisco State University , 2005, 157 pages).
• Joanne Sayner: “You have to tear off the colorful flowers”: Melita Maschmann's Autobiographical Memories of Nazism, in: Forum for Modern Language Studies , Volume 41, No. 2 (2005): 213–225.
• Joanne Sayner: Women without a past? German autobiographical writings and fascism , Rodopi, Amsterdam / New York 2007, ISBN 978-90-420-2228-7 .
• Lynda Maureen Willett: Women under National Socialism: The Case Study of Melita Maschmann (= ScholarWorks at UMass ) University of Massachusetts Boston 2012, OCLC 843913960 ((MA) Master of Arts Thesis University of Massachusetts Boston August 2012, 88 pages online PDF, free of charge , 95 pages, 487 kB).
• Florian Huber : Child, promise me that you will shoot yourself. The downfall of the common people in 1945 . Berlin-Verlag, Berlin 2015 ISBN 978-3-8270-1247-0 .
• Helen Epstein : I was a nazi and heres why. In: The New Yorker , May 29, 2013.

Publications

• 1940: Girls call the summer camps of the BDM-Obergau Wartheland. BDM-Obergau Wartheland, Posen, Kurfürstenring 2/3 (6 pages), DNB 574956484 .
• 1955: The word was called love, Roman, Salzer, Heilbronn, DNB 453240909 .
• 1960: The Thirteenth , Roman, DVA, Stuttgart, DNB 453240844 ; List Taschenbuch 282, Munich 1965, DNB 453240887 .
• 1961: The ash trail , Roman, DVA, Stuttgart, DNB 453240836 .
• 1963: Conclusion, my way in the Hitler Youth. No attempt at justification , autobiography. With a foreword by Ida Friederike Görres. DVA, Stuttgart 1964, 1967, 1971; as paperback with afterword by Helga Grebing: dtv 1427, Munich 1979, 1980, 1981, 1987, ISBN 3-423-01427-X .
• 1967: The tiger sings Kirtana: India trip with a Hindu saint. OW Barth, Weilheim, DNB 457521813 , revised new edition: A very common saint: The great soul of Ānandamayī Mā: India trip with the most important Hindu saint of modern times. Barth, Bern / Munich / Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-502-67448-5 ; as paperback: Droemer Knaur 86015, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-426-86015-5 .
• 1971: Indira's Sisters: A Report on Women in India , Neske, Pfullingen, ISBN 3-7885-0011-5 .

Web links

• Helen Epstein: I Was a Nazi, and Here's Why. In: The New Yorker , May 29, 2013
• Correspondence with Hannah Arendt. Library of Congress Archives

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Date and place of birth after: Who is who? , Volume 16, Arani, 1970, p. 816
2. ↑ https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/i-was-a-nazi-and-heres-why.k  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically defective marked. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ Generations of women leaders? In: H-Soz-Kult, June 10, 2003 H-Soz-Kult , accessed on January 26, 2020.