Christabel Bielenberg
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Christabel Bielenberg (1909-2003) was a British woman married to a German lawyer, Peter Bielenberg. She described her experiences living in Germany during the Second World War in two books: The Past is Myself (1968) and The Road Ahead.
Christabel Burton was born in Hertfordshire of Anglo-Irish parents. Her mother, Christabel (née Harmsworth),[1] was the sister of Lords Northcliffe, Harmsworth and Rothermere.
She won a scholarship to Oxford but decided to study music in Germany. While there she met Peter Bielenberg (1911-2001), two years her junior, who was studying law with a view to joining his father's practice in Hamburg. They married in 1934 and she took German citizenship, which, at that time, would have required her to relinquish her British citizenship.
The Bielenbergs lived initially in Hamburg, then moved to Berlin and had three sons, Nicholas, Christopher and John. The heavy Allied bombing raids led Mrs Bielenberg and her children to leave the city and they eventually settled in the village of Rohrbach in the Black Forest.
Both Christabel and Peter Bielenberg were opposed to Nazism and following Hitler's rise to power in 1933, participated in anti-Nazi activity. Her experience of attempting to shelter Jews hiding from persecution was described by her in the television series The World at War in 1974.
Peter Bielenberg was a close friend of Adam von Trott zu Solz, who was involved in the von Stauffenberg bomb plot against Hitler of 1944, and as a result of his suspect political views and this close association was arrested, interrogated and imprisoned in Ravensbrück concentration camp following its failure. In an effort to secure his release, Christabel Bielenberg asked to be interviewed by the Gestapo in order to convince them of her and her husband's political naivety and innocence. She was successful and he was released to a punishment unit but mistakenly allowed leave before joining it. He managed to slip away and remained in hiding near his family until the fighting ended.
After the war, she returned to the UK with her children, visiting Germany as a war correspondent.
In 1948, the family settled in Tullow, County Carlow, Ireland, buying a dilapidated farm called "Munny House", which they transformed into a commercial success . As well as writing her autobiography she became involved with the Irish Peace Marches of the 1970s and lectured in Germany.
She was made a Commander of the German Federal Order of Merit and was also awarded a Gold Medal of Merit by the European Parliament.
Her experiences in World War 2 were made into the TV drama Christabel by the BBC in 1988. Christabel was played by Elizabeth Hurley. imdb entry
[edit] References
- ^ http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article37403.ece obituary in The Independent
[edit] External links
BBC interview with Christabel Bielenberg and with Elke Acherley, daughter of the Bielenbergs' neighbour Carl Langbehn, who was executed following the plot to kill Hitler.
