Elisabeth Von Thadden - Arrest and Execution

Arrest and Execution

Von Thadden developed contacts with opponents of the Nazi régime such as Helmut Gollwitzer, Martin Niemöller and Elly Heuss-Knapp and also engaged in activities such as gathering food stamps for people in hiding and affording those threatened by the régime a chance to leave the country. In doing so she either underestimated how dangerous these activities were, or acted without regard for her own safety.

She also belonged to the "Solf Circle", a group considered by the Nazis to be part of the German Resistance. Led by an ambassador's widow and her daughter, and much like the Trieglaffer Konferenzen of von Thadden's youth, it attracted people from various walks of life with assorted political views who came to discuss pressing issues. At one such meeting on 10 September 1943, hosted by Elisabeth von Thadden, one of the guests was a Swiss doctor named Paul Reckzeh, who, as it turned out, was a Gestapo informant. He had been sent to make contact with the Solf Circle to find traitors to the Reich. His report to his Gestapo superiors was quite damning, leading the Gestapo to observe the participants to uncover their connections abroad. Over the next few months they were arrested, including Elisabeth von Thadden on 12 January 1944, at her post in Meaux, France.

There followed months of dreadful treatment and lengthy interrogations in various prisons and in the penal bunker at Ravensbrück concentration camp. On 1 July 1944, the Volksgerichtshof, over which presided Roland Freisler, sentenced Elisabeth von Thadden to death for conspiring to commit high treason and undermining the fighting forces (Wehrkraftzersetzung). Ten weeks later on 8 September 1944, at 17:00, she was beheaded at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin. Her last words were: "Put an end, Lord, to all our sufferings".