When World War Two began, Johanna Solf was 51, living in an apartment in the diplomatic area of central Berlin. The apartment was owned by her neighbour, Arthur Zarden, who lived with his daughter Irmgard. Lagi Solf was back from Shanghai, a 29-year-old divorcee. Soon after arriving, the Gestapo called her in for questioning over helping Shanghai Jewish refugees. No action was taken. A friend described her as slim and well dressed, who ‘imbued any gathering with an aura of international sophistication.’ Among those attracted to her was Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung journalist Anton Knyphausen. Lagi introduced him to childhood friend Armgard Michelet. Anton and Armgard were soon married. At the wedding breakfast, which Lagi attended, one of the guests wore a swastika armband. He was Wolfram Sievers, head of the Ahnenerbe (Ancestral Heritage Society) created by SS head Heinrich Himmler. Given social connections like this, it was striking that Johanna and Lagi were quietly using their other extensive ties – to the Wehrmacht and the Defence Ministry’s intelligence service, the Abwehr - to help Jews leave Germany. Lagi found it both dangerous and tedious, visiting ‘innumerable embassies and consulates in quest of visas’.
In the autumn of 1940 Lagi married a conscripted Wehrmacht officer. Count Hubert Graf von Ballestrem, 29, of Silesian nobility, seventh son of one of Germany’s richest men, coal and steel industrialist Valentin Ballestrem and his wife Agnes. The marriage made Lagi a countess. Her new husband, a Catholic, had long opposed the Nazis.
While many German Christians opposed the Nazis regime, they saw no reason for the church to be unpatriotic nor to defy the draft. The newly married couple were soon parted by war; Lagi joined her mother to continue their Jewish aid work. Jewish apartments had to be marked with the Star of David. Non-Jews were forbidden from visiting. Lagi would go into the apartments, getting from the occupants lists of what they needed, including vegetables and items still not rationed.
‘Our butcher’s wife, with a wink, would weigh me up a larger piece of meat than the ration called for.’
Jews were occasionally hidden in Solf’s apartment.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Michael Field's South Pacific to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.