Lilo Ramdohr

Lieselotte Fürst-Ramdohr

Lilo Ramdohr at the registry office with Carl G. Fürst in Munich, February 1944
Born 11 October 1913
Aschersleben, Germany
Died 13 May 2013 (aged 99)
Starnberg, Germany
Known for member of the White Rose resistance group in Nazi Germany

Lieselotte ″Lilo″ Fürst-Ramdohr (11 October 1913 – 13 May 2013)[1] was a member of the Munich branch of the student resistance group White Rose (Weiße Rose) in Nazi Germany. She was born in Aschersleben.

Early life

Ramdohr was a descendant of a merchant family from Aschersleben. After half a year in England and one year at the boarding school of Dr. Fritz Weiß in Weimar where her long year friendship with Falk Harnack began, she moved to Munich in 1934 to become a stage designer.[2] From March 1935 to February 1936, she learned book illustration at the Württembergische Kunstgewerbeschule in Stuttgart. In 1936, she moved to Dresden to attend dance school until the Nazis closed it down. Ramdohr switched to a state-run school in Stuttgart, and later ran a private school in Heilbronn. She eventually married Otto Berndl, son of a Bavarian architect.[3]

The White Rose

In the fall of 1941, she befriended Alexander Schmorell,[4] Christoph Probst and Hans Scholl, and later Traute Lafrenz, Sophie Scholl and Willi Graf.[5] After her husband was killed in Russia in May 1942, she began storing documents and a duplication apparatus in her flat in Neuhausen-Nymphenburg. In November 1942, she expanded the group's underground activities by joining forces with more powerful groups in Berlin such as the Kreisauer Kreis and the Christian resistance leader Dietrich Bonhoeffer through the help of Falk Harnack.[6]

Escape from Munich

On 2 March 1943 Ramdohr was arrested, but was released for lack of evidence.[7] Later that month, Heinrich Himmler ordered her arrested again and sentenced to death, but she managed to escape.[8] Ramdohr married German-born, Brazilian-raised medical student Carl Gebhard Fürst (1920–2010) in February 1944 in Munich, and escaped to her hometown of Aschersleben, using the name Lieselotte Fürst.

Post-war era

Ramdohr survived the war and in 1948 fled with her four-year-old daughter, Doma-Ulrike, out of the Soviet occupation zone back to Bavaria, where she became a sports instructor in boarding schools in Upper Bavaria. In 1995, she published her memoirs "Friendships in the White Rose". Up until her death, she lived in a small town outside Munich.[9] The BBC described her as a "spry 99-year-old".[9]

Documentaries

Works by Lilo Fürst-Ramdohr

References

  1. ↑ http://white-rose-studies.org/May_31_2013.html
  2. ↑ White Rose History, Volume I. Retrieved 2012-02-04.
  3. ↑ "Full text of "Die Kunst : Monatsheft für freie und angewandte Kunst"". Archive.org. Retrieved 2012-02-04.
  4. ↑ Annette Dumbach, Jud Newborn. Sophie Scholl and the White Rose. Retrieved 2012-02-04.
  5. ↑ "p. 139". Scribd.com. Retrieved 2012-02-04.
  6. ↑ Ruth Hanna Sachs. White Rose History, Volume II (Academic Version): Journey to Freedom (May 1 ... p. 690. Retrieved 2012-02-04.
  7. ↑ p.65 et seq.
  8. ↑ Gottfried Hamacher, Andrι Lohmar. Gegen Hitler: Deutsche in der Resistance, in den Streitkräften der ... Retrieved 2012-02-04.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Burns, Lucy (February 21, 2013). "White Rose: The Germans who tried to topple Hitler". BBC World Service. Retrieved February 22, 2013.

Further reading

External links