(ca. 19 19-1955)
Member and cofounder of the Solf tea parties, which brought together anti-Nazi intellectuals and helped Jews obtain hiding places and falsified passports to escape the Third Reich. Lagi Countess Ballestrem-Solf was the daughter of Wilhelm Solf (1862-1936), an opponent of national socialism and ambassador to Japan under the Weimar Republic. The countess spent the early and mid-1930s living in Shanghai, China, where she aided several Jewish refugees who had escaped to Asia. The Gestapo learned of her activities and questioned her upon her return to Berlin in 1938. When she was released, both she and her mother, Johanna (1887-1954), began work in Germany, hiding Jewish families in their apartment and planning escape routes to other parts of Europe for them. The Gestapo, however, caught several of these Jews, who then implicated the Solfs in helping them to escape; consequently, the German police increased their surveillance of the women and began tapping their phone lines.
Undaunted, the countess and her mother continued to resist the Nazi regime by holding tea parties, which were actually secret meetings aimed at organizing anti-Nazi intellectuals. The members of these meetings, known as the Solf Circle, were prominent members of society, including Otto Keip, a high-ranking official in the Foreign Office; Father Erxleben, a well-known Jesuit priest; Countess Hanna von Bredow, the granddaughter of Bismarck; Albrecht von Bern-storff, a diplomat, banker, and Rhodes Scholar; and Elisabeth von Thadden, head of a respected girls’ school near Heidelberg.
On September 10, 1943, von Thadden brought a new guest with her to the tea party, the Swiss Dr. Reckzeh, who unbeknownst to von Thadden was working as an undercover Gestapo agent. When the group’s anti-Nazi sentiments became clear to Reckzeh, he reported the members to the Gestapo, who four months later, on January 12, 1944, arrested each of the tea-party guests. The countess and her mother were held for two days and eventually transferred to the Ravensbruck concentration camp, where they underwent sleep deprivation, starvation diets, and other intense interrogation methods.
Between 1944 and 1945, all of the members of the Solf Circle were executed for their political activities, except for the countess and her mother. On February 3, 1945, the two were being tried by the Berlin People’s Court when a U.S. bombing raid occurred. The prisoners were rushed to their cells by the court’s guards, but the president of the court, Roland Freisler, was killed in the raid when a bomb made a direct hit on the building, and the Solfs’ file was destroyed. The women were rescheduled to be tried in the same court on April 27, but by that time the Russians had invaded Berlin. As a result, the countess and her mother, who were previously facing death sentences, were released. The war ended in Europe two weeks later.
Dr. James Barry: The Woman Who Served as a British Military Surgeon "An incident is just now being discussed in military circles so extraordinary that, were not the truth capable of being vouched for by official authority, the narration would certainly be deemed incredible. Our officers quartered at the Cape between 15 and 20 years ago may remember a certain Dr Barry attached to the medical staff there, and enjoying a reputation for considerable skill in his profession, especially for firmness, decision and rapidity in difficult operations. The gentleman had entered the army in 1813, had passed, of course, through the grades of assistant surgeon and surgeon in various regiments, and had served as such in various quarters of the globe. His professional acquirements had procured for him promotion to the staff at the Cape. About 1840 he became promoted to be medical inspector, and was transferred to Malta. He proceeded from Malta to Corfu where he was quartered for many years. He . . . died about a month ago, and upon his death was discovered to be a woman. The motives that occasioned and the time when commenced this singular deception are both shrouded in mystery. But thus it stands as an indisputable fact, that a woman was for 40 years an officer in the British service, and fought one duel and had sought many more, had pursued a legitimate medical education, and received a regular diploma, and had acquired almost a celebrity for skill as a surgical operator."
"He was clever and agreeable, save for the drawback of a most quarrelsome temper, and an inordinate addiction to argument, which perpetually brought the former peculiarity into play. He was excessively plain, of feeble proportions, and laboured under the imperfection of a ludicrously squeaking voice. Any natural ‘chaffing’ with regard to these, however, especially roused his ire, but was at length discontinued on his ‘calling out’ a persevering offender, and shooting him through the lungs. About 1840 he was promoted to be medical inspector, and was transferred to Malta. There he was equally distinguished by his skill and by his pugnacious propensities, the latter becoming so inconveniently developed upon the slightest difference of opinion with him, that at last no notice was allowed to be taken of his fits of temper."
