Christabel Bielenberg

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Christabel Bielenberg
BornChristabel Mary Burton
(1909-06-18)18 June 1909
Totteridge, Hertfordshire, England
Died2 November 2003(2003-11-02) (aged 94)
LanguageEnglish, German
NationalityBritish
GenreBiography
SpousePeter Bielenberg
Signature

Christabel Mary Bielenberg (née Burton, 18 June 1909 – 2 November 2003) was a British writer who was 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.

Life

Christabel Mary Burton was born in

Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere. Her father was Lt-Col Percy Burton.[2] She was educated at St Margaret's School, Bushey, Hertfordshire, and won a scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford, but decided instead 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.[citation needed
]

They married in 1934 and she took

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, near Furtwangen im Schwarzwald, in the Black Forest.[citation needed
]

Both Christabel and Peter Bielenberg were opposed to

20 July Plot against Hitler of 1944, and as a result of his suspect political views and this close association with Trott, Bielenberg was arrested, interrogated, and imprisoned in Ravensbrück concentration camp following the failure of the plot. In an effort to secure his release, Christabel Bielenberg asked to be interviewed by the Gestapo to convince them of her and her husband's political naivete and innocence.[citation needed
]

She was interviewed by SS-Sturmbannführer Herbert Lange. She was successful. Her husband was released but sentenced to punishment. He managed to slip away and remained in hiding near his family until the war ended.[citation needed]

After the war, she returned to Britain with her children, later visiting Germany as a

foreign correspondent for The Observer. In 1948, the family settled in Tullow, County Carlow, Ireland, buying a dilapidated farm called "Munny House", which they transformed into a commercial success.[citation needed
]

As well as writing her autobiography she became involved with Irish politics in 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.[citation needed
]

Legacy

Her experiences during the Second World War were made into the

Christabel (1988), adapted from her memoir by Dennis Potter. Elizabeth Hurley starred in the title role. In 1974, Christabel Bielenberg described her experiences of attempting to shelter Jews hiding from persecution in the television series The World at War
.

Portrait bust

Christabel Bielenberg sat for sculptor

Henry Moore Institute in Leeds and the terracotta remains in the collection of the artist.[4]

Family

She had three sons, Nicholas, John, and Christopher. Nicholas and Christopher married sisters, Charlotte and Angela, respectively, both daughters of Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg.[citation needed]

References

  1. ^ Christabel Bielenberg – IMDb Retrieved 29 October 2016.
  2. ^ Obituary, The Independent. Accessed 30 January 2023.
  3. ^ Portrait head of Christabel Bielenberg Archived 19 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine, image of sculpture
  4. ^ HMI Archive Archived 12 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christabel_Bielenberg&oldid=1177007486"