Post by Diana Hildebrandt

She was a rebellious, free-spirited, courageous tomboy. Later she saved many people's lives: Maria Gräfin von Maltzan born #onthisday 112 years ago, 25th March 1909. Countess von Maltzan grew up as the youngest child of Prussian aristocrats in Silesia. Against the strict will of her family she went to university and received her doctorate in zoology in 1933. At the same time she read Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' and decided to join resistance. Over the next years von Maltzan supported different #resistance groups in Munich, later Berlin. From 1937 until the end of Nazi terror she hid and helped to escape around 60 victims (among them her Jewish husband-to-be), though she was under close Gestapo observation. Von Maltzan was notorious for her boldness. She later said in an interview: "If you never provoke, if you are always submissive, you are far more suspicious than someone who's really impertinent." Her life inspired the film "Forbidden" ("Versteckt", 1984) with Jacqueline Bisset. 1986 she published her autobiography "Beat the Drums and Be Without Fright". Maria von Maltzan is honored as one of the Righteous among the Nations in Yad Vashem. She died 1997 at age 88.