Maria Daelen – The rediscovery of a strong woman

Maria Daelen (1903-1993) was a self-confident and strong woman of the 20th century who captivated people with her personality. She was already self-employed as a doctor in the 1930s. Later, she courageously stood behind the resistance fighters of July 20, 1944. She was one of the few women in the Federal Ministry of the Interior in the 1950s and 1960s and, as a delegate to the Council of Europe and the WHO, led the Germans back into international health policy.

In addition, Maria Daelen lived the “diversity love” particularly intensively: With her lover, the Swiss writer Annemarie Schwarzenbach, she celebrated the 1920s and 1930s in Berlin, with her long-time life partner Wilhelm Furtwängler she experienced the National Socialist period under different auspices and maintained intensive relationships with Gabriele Henkel, Fabian von Schlabrendorff or Carlo Schmid.

Maren Richter has rediscovered the life story of this fascinating woman and, using previously unpublished sources and photographs, has written a well-founded and “grandiose biography”(Süddeutsche Zeitung).

Cellist Pirkko Langer(Heidelberger Sinfoniker) plays pieces by Ernest Bloch and György Ligeti, among others, which have a close connection to Maria Daelen’s life story.

Maren Richter is a historian and freelance writer. After studying Modern and Contemporary History and Intercultural Communication, she was a research assistant at the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich.

In the context of the 7th Literaturherbst Heidelberg