Elisabeth von Thadden

Elisabeth Adelheid Hildegard von Thadden (29 July 1890 – 8 September 1944, executed) was a German progressive educator and a resistance fighter against the Nazi régime as a member of the Solf Circle. She was sentenced to death for conspiring to commit high treason and undermining the fighting forces (Wehrkraftzersetzung). Early life and family Elisabeth von Thadden was born in Mohrungen, East Prussia (present-day Morąg, Poland) to the long-established noble Thadden family. Her parents were Adolf Gerhard Ludwig von Thadden (1858-1932), Prussian county commissioner (Landrat) of Landkreis Greifenberg in Pomerania (now Powiat Gryficki in Poland), and Ehrengard von Gerlach (1868–1909). She was the eldest of five children. In 1905, the family moved to the Trieglaff (Trzygłów) estate in Pomerania, where Thadden grew up in a big Protestant family. Elisabeth's brother, Reinold (1891-1976), grew up to be a famous theologian and jurist, and her nephew, Reinold's son, Rudolf (born 1932) is a well-known German historian. Her sister, Ehrengard Schramm (1900–1985), was a Social Democratic politician and member of the Lower Saxon Landtag. Her half-brother Adolf von Thadden (1921-1996), however, rose to be the National Democratic Party's chairman after World War II in West Germany. Elisabeth herself never married and has no direct descendants. Elisabeth attended boarding school in Baden-Baden and the renowned Reifenstein school. Upon her mother's death in 1909, Thadden took over managing the family estate, as well as the care of her youngest siblings. She kept an open and hospitable house in Trieglaff, which also was the scene of several discussion circles organized by her and her father. These Trieglaffer Konferenzen attracted politicians, theologians, jurists, and scientists of many political stripes. Here she met with Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze, a theologian, social pedagogue and pioneer of the peace movement, who became a close friend. Thadden always felt a keen connection with her fellow human beings, and this showed up early on when, during World War I, she made it possible for many city children to spend time in the somewhat more idyllic setting of Trieglaff.