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{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2020}}
{{EngvarB|date=February 2020}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Maud von Ossietzky
| image =
| alt =
| caption =
| other_names =
| occupation = suffragette, political activist
| birth_place = [[Hyderabad]], [[British India]]
| death_place = [[East Berlin]], [[East Germany]]
| birth_date = {{start-date|12 December 1888}}
| death_date = {{death-date and age|12 May 1974|12 December 1888}}
| spouse = [[Carl von Ossietzky]] (German)
| children = [[Rosalinde von Ossietzky-Palm]]
| awards =
}}

'''Maud Hester von Ossietzky''' (née Lichfield-Woods; 12 December 1888, Hyderabad – 12 May 1974, Berlin) was a [[suffragette]] and the wife of German journalist and [[Nobel Peace Prize]] winner [[Carl von Ossietzky]].

She was born in [[Hyderabad|Hyderabad, India]], to a British colonial officer and the descendant of an [[Indian princess]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft6n39p125/|title=In a Cold Crater: Cultural and Intellectual Life in Berlin, 1945–1948|last=Schivelbusch|first=Wolfgang|publisher=UC Press E-Books Collection, 1982-2004; California Digital Library|year=1998|location=Berkeley, CA|pages=171–174}}</ref> Despite her Indian heritage, she is almost always referred to as an "Englishwoman."<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fj24SfE_AcoC&q=Maud+Lichfield-Woods&pg=PT141|title=Blood Kindred: W. B. Yeats, the Life, the Death, the Politics|last=McCormack|first=W. J.|date=2011-01-11|publisher=Random House|isbn=978-1-4464-4424-5|pages=[no page numbers online]|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web|url=https://www.cvo-berlin.de/carl-von-ossietzky-schule/der-namensgeber/|title=Der Namensgeber|date=2017-04-28|website=Carl-von-Ossietzky-Schule|language=de|access-date=2019-11-23|archive-date=8 June 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190608094349/https://www.cvo-berlin.de/carl-von-ossietzky-schule/der-namensgeber/|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7qlvzyEieyQC&q=carl+von+ossietzky+marriage&pg=PA186|title=Who's Who in Nazi Germany|last=Wistrich|first=Robert S.|date=2013-07-04|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-41388-9|pages=186|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":4">[https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1935/ossietzky/biographical/ "Carl von Ossietzky,"] from ''Nobel Lectures, Peace 1926-1950'', Editor Frederick W. Haberman, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972. Originally written in 1935.</ref>

She was active in the British suffragette movement in her youth.<ref name=":0" />

== Life with Carl von Ossietzky ==
In Hamburg (or perhaps Fairhaven, England)<ref name=":5">{{Cite web|url=https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz73879.html|title=Ossietzky, Carl von|last=Grathoff|first=Dirk|year=1999|website=Deutsche Biografie|series=Neue Deutsche Biographie|pages=610–611|language=de|access-date=2019-11-23}}</ref> on 19 August 1913, she married Carl von Ossietzky, a pacifist and later a writer for and editor-in-chief of the leftist German weekly ''[[Die Weltbühne]]'' (''The World Stage'').<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aNlfCgAAQBAJ&q=Maud+Lichfield-Woods&pg=PA309|title=The Private Heinrich Himmler: Letters of a Mass Murderer|last1=Himmler|first1=Katrin|last2=Wildt|first2=Michael|date=2016-03-08|publisher=St. Martin's Publishing Group|isbn=978-1-4668-7089-5|pages=309|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":6">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Kk13DwAAQBAJ&q=Maud+Lichfield-Woods&pg=PT188|title=Freimaurer: Aufklärung eines Mythos|last=Goeller|first=Tom|date=2013-05-29|publisher=be.bra verlag|isbn=978-3-8393-0102-9|pages=[no page numbers online]|language=de}}</ref><ref name=":3" /> The couple met in 1912 in Hamburg, but little is known about their early life together.<ref name=":6" /> It seems that her wealthy family opposed the marriage.<ref name=":7">{{Cite news|url=https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13528288.html|title=Das Gefühl für die Republik|date=1988-04-18|work=Spiegel Online|access-date=2019-11-23|volume=16}}</ref> Early in their marriage, she paid a fine on his behalf after he published an anti-war article.<ref name=":4" /> Surviving letters attest to Carl's devotion to his wife. While Carl served in [[World War I]], he wrote Maud a letter that described her as an igniting force in his life: "You are the magnet that first touched the rigid iron."<ref name=":7" /> In 1922, he wrote to her that he "blessed the fate that sent her."<ref name=":7" />

Their daughter [[Rosalinde von Ossietzky-Palm|Rosalinde]] was born on 21 December 1919.<ref name=":2" />

While Carl worked as a writer and political activist, Maud organized lectures for him.<ref name=":5" /> In 1931, Carl von Ossietzky was imprisoned for "treason and espionage" because of his role in [[Weltbühne-Prozess|publishing details of German remilitarization]]; he was released in 1932.<ref>Haberman, Frederick W. ''Peace 1926–1950'' (1999), ''World Scientific'', pg. 211.</ref>

After the [[Reichstag Fire]] in April 1933, von Ossietzky wanted to flee Germany, but her husband chose to remain.<ref name=":7" /> He was quickly arrested by the [[Gestapo]] and imprisoned in a series of prisons and concentration camps.<ref name=":2" /> Whether she was a supportive wife<ref name=":7" /> or incapable of helping her husband,<ref name=":8">{{Cite web|url=https://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/?location_id=14&item=123|title=Beyond a Biography: Hilde Walter's Testimony and a Research Journey through the Wiener Library Archives|last=Oppermann|first=Paula|date=19 March 2015|website=Wiener Holocaust Library Blog - Wiener Library|language=en|access-date=2019-11-23}}</ref> neither she nor her husband's famous international friends could release him from [[Nazi concentration camps]].

In 1936, Carl von Ossietzky contracted tuberculosis and was moved to a hospital in Berlin.<ref name=":0" /> He was awarded the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize during this period, though his sickness did not allow him to accept it in person. His wife nursed him until he died on 4 May 1938.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":5" /> Carl von Ossietzky was buried in a municipal cemetery, and Maud spent the next years fighting to move his body to a cemetery in the Berlin neighborhood of [[Pankow]].<ref name=":9">{{Cite web|url=https://www.berliner-woche.de/pankow/c-politik/erinnerung-an-einen-pazifisten-carl-von-ossietzkys-ehrengrab-befindet-sich-in-pankow_a162176|title=Erinnerung an einen Pazifisten: Carl von Ossietzkys Ehrengrab befindet sich in Pankow|last=Wähner|first=Bernd|date=18 May 2018|website=Berliner Woche|language=de|access-date=2019-11-23}}</ref>

Maud spent time in a psychiatric clinic after his death.<ref name=":0" /> One author has claimed that the Gestapo ordered her to stop using her late husband's name and lived as "Maud Woods."<ref name=":0" />

She invested the money awarded with her husband's Nobel Peace Prize with lawyer Kurt Wannow, but Wannow embezzled the sum in 1937.<ref name=":10">{{Cite web|url=http://scihi.org/carl-von-ossietzky/|title=Carl von Ossietzky and Political Reason|last=Tietz|first=Tabea|date=2019-10-03|website=SciHi Blog|language=en-US|access-date=2019-11-23|archive-date=9 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191209103202/http://scihi.org/carl-von-ossietzky/|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=":2" />

== Historical inconsistencies ==
Many sources state that by the time the Nazis imprisoned her husband, von Ossietzky was an [[Alcoholism|alcoholic]],<ref name=":8" /> with one writing that her alcoholism "caused [her husband] great pain ... but may have protected her from retribution under the Nazis."<ref name=":1" /> Others have claimed that her husband's death caused her alcoholism.<ref name=":0" /> Their daughter blamed ''Die Weltbühne'' for her mother's (unspecified) "illness."<ref name=":7" />

During World War II, Rosalinde was sent to a Quaker boarding school in England through the support of [[Ernst Toller]] and the [[Quakers]].<ref name=":8" /><ref name=":11">{{Cite web|url=http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/library/carl/newcarl.htm|title=Addendum to 1935 Carl von Ossietzky biography: The peace hero in the concentration camp|last=Singer|first=Kurt D.|date=April 2001|website=The Danish Peace Academy|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170722133953/http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/library/carl/newcarl.htm|archive-date=22 July 2017|access-date=2019-11-23}}</ref> Another source claims that Maud and Rosalinde emigrated to Sweden via England,<ref name=":10" /> though there are no other sources that place Maud in Sweden. A third source states that Maud remained in Berlin when Rosalinde traveled from England to Sweden.<ref name=":11" /> Rosalinde died in Sweden in 2000.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.presse.uni-oldenburg.de/mit/2000/040.html|title=Universität trauert um Rosalinde von Ossietzky-Palm|work=[[University of Oldenburg]]|date=8 February 2000|access-date=19 May 2021|language=de}}</ref>

German sources tend to ascribe Maud a more positive and active role,<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":5" /> while English-language scholarship often describes her in less complimentary terms.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":8" />

== Later life ==
On 1 June 1946, ''Die Weltbühne'' reappeared in the Soviet sector of Berlin with Maud von Ossietzky and Hans Leonard listed as editors.<ref name=":12">{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/weimargermanysle0000deak|url-access=registration|quote=Maud von Ossietzky.|title=Weimar Germany's Left-wing Intellectuals: A Political History of the Weltbühne and Its Circle|last=Deák|first=István|date=1968|publisher=University of California Press|location=Berkeley, CA|pages=[https://archive.org/details/weimargermanysle0000deak/page/221 221]|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":13">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EHY3DgAAQBAJ&q=Maud+von+Ossietzky&pg=PA32|title=German Intellectuals and the Challenge of Democratic Renewal: Culture and Politics After 1945|last=Forner|first=Sean A.|date=2017-03-23|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-62783-3|location=Cambridge, UK|pages=32|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":0" /> Leonard, her neighbor, had a career in publishing ended by Nazi anti-semitic discrimination.<ref name=":13" /> Maud von Ossietzky and Leonard revived a Weimar-era publication that endures to this day.

In 1966, she published her memoir, ''Maud von Ossietzky erzählt: ein Lebensbild'' (''Maud von Ossietzky Explains: a Life Story'').<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kHzylTEpyiUC&q=Maud+v.+Ossietzky+erz%C3%A4hlt+1966&pg=PA213|title=Nobel Lectures in Peace|last=Haberman|first=Frederick W.|date=1999|publisher=World Scientific|isbn=978-981-02-3415-7|pages=213|language=en}}</ref> Historians were divided in their opinion: [[Wolfgang Schivelbusch]] referred to the book as "admittedly unreliable,"<ref name=":0" /> while [[István Deák]] found it "charming and straightforward."<ref name=":12" />

Maud von Ossietzky died in 1974 in Berlin and is buried next to her husband in Pankow.<ref name=":9" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/187832184/maud-von_ossietzky|title=Maud Lichfield-Woods von Ossietzky|website=Find a Grave|access-date=22 November 2019}}</ref>

== Further reading ==

* ''Maud von Ossietzky erzählt: ein Lebensbild'' (Berlin: Buchverlag der Morgen, 1966). It was republished in 1988. There is currently no English translation.
* An album containing Carl's letters to Maud is held in the [https://uol.de/en/bis/archivesandcollections/carlvonossietzkyarchive Carl von Ossietzky Archive] at the [[University of Oldenburg|Carl von Ossietzky University]] in Oldenburg, Germany.

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ossietzky, Maud}}
[[Category:1888 births]]
[[Category:1974 deaths]]
[[Category:Indian women activists]]
[[Category:Suffragettes]]
[[Category:People from Hyderabad, India]]
[[Category:Indian emigrants to Germany]]
[[Category:German people of British descent]]

Maud von Ossietzky - Revision history

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