Introduction by Clare Westmacott

My grandmother Klara Mehlich Seuffert wrote this diary from December 1940 to November 1944 while living in and around Cologne. She wrote it for my mother Lotte who was married to an Englishman Jack (my father) and living in England. It is an account of Klara’s life during the war years, and my grandmother hoped that if she were unable to give it to my mother herself, that they might somehow reach my mother one day. They both survived the war and eventually the diary was given to me.  

My grandmother came from a colourful background. She was born in 1889, the daughter of a farmer’s daughter who – as family lore has it – ran off with a bare-back rider when the circus came to town. As a child my grandmother travelled extensively to cities all over Europe including Saint Petersburg and London. They were a large family and she lost several brothers in the First World War.

She was a lot younger than her husband Robert Seuffert. He was an artist and Professor of Art in Cologne and she had been one of his models. He was born in 1874 in Cologne the son of a sculptor who came from the Saarland to work on finishing the cathedral. My grandfather’s first lessons were from his father and between 1897 and 1908 he was the student of Eduard von Gebhardt at the Düsseldorf Academy and master student of Johann Peter Theodor Janssen. As a young man he travelled to study in Berlin, Munich, to the world exhibition in Paris (1900), to Belgium, Holland and Italy. The Italian trip was the result of winning a prize to study there for a year.

His province was the painting of historical, religious and monumental works and his work was displayed in several cities in Germany including Berlin. One of his early murals painted in 1902 was a ceiling painting “Prometheus brings the heavenly fire, the truth of art and the light of perception to humanity” for the opera house in Cologne. He was responsible for large murals in many churches and secular buildings, one example being a mural in the treasury hall of the Nassauer Landesbank in Wiesbaden painted in 1915. He was a highly regarded portrait painter and belonged to a circle of artists known as “Der Stil”.

He was appointed as a teacher to the Cologne arts and crafts college in either 1912 or 1914 and became Professor at that institution in 1923. He retired in 1936. Many of his paintings were destroyed in World War II including the ceiling painting from the opera house but some exist in museums in Cologne and some religious works went to the USA and some are in private hands.

My grandparents had three children, my mother Liese Lotte born in 1912, Walter who was four years younger and Robert (called Röbi) who was born in 1920. They were comfortably off, although somewhat Bohemian and lived in an elegant house in the Wiethasestraße in the district of Braunsfeld in Cologne. They moved in fairly elevated circles and were members of the best social clubs before the war. Among their circle was Konrad Adenauer who was Lord Mayor of Cologne and who was dismissed from the post by the Nazis in 1933. After the war he became the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. 

Klara and Lotte

The children had a governess until they went away to school, my mother to a convent school and Walter was sent to the Jesuits. Röbi went to the local school.

My mother came to England in 1936 to be an au pair. She met my father and married him in a civil ceremony in 1937 by special licence before she had to return to Germany shortly before her visa ran out. It was then easier for her as a married woman to return to England permanently in March 1938 when they married in church and my grandmother gave her away at the wedding. My parents visited the family in Cologne in summer 1938. My mother became a naturalised Briton upon marriage and was therefore not subject to internment during the war. I was born in 1940 (Klärchen in the diary) and my brother Nigel was born in 1943.

It is clear what my grandmother’s political views were during the war and this diary must have been written secretly, and to judge by her handwriting sometimes in great haste. In fact she was once summoned to the Gestapo over a letter she had received and she also records in the diary the illegal activities she did undertake.

They are a very personal account of her life during this period reflecting the experiences of a housewife desperate to find food for her family, of a citizen enduring the privations of the war without compromising her principles, but above all of a mother whose desire for the safe return of her children was paramount, all within the context of the horrors of the war. At first she seems to have some difficulty getting her diary up and running but it soon becomes apparent that her digressions are both relevant and interesting.

The first volume of Klara’s diary

Her diary reveals inconsistencies in her relationship both with her children and her husband which in respect of her children at least can only have been a result of the stresses of the war. For example although the diary is dedicated to my mother she not infrequently imagines my mother is not even trying to keep in touch. Her relationship with her son Walter fluctuates from being very close and loving to indifference. Only Röbi escapes criticism.

As for her relationship with her husband, clearly it had broken down long before the war started but the shared love and concern for their children retained by a thread the bond that had once existed between them.

Her relationship with God was also very personal and not without humour. Her faith faltered on occasions but on the whole she believed that if God willed it her children would be returned to her.

There are also inconsistencies of fact in her diary but one can only assume that she wrote down what she believed to be true. For example although she clearly was suspicious of Nazi propaganda she nevertheless believed a report that York Minster had been destroyed by the Luftwaffe.

With the benefit of hindsight it is fascinating to read her accounts of events in relation to what we now know to be the facts. For example her account of what happened on the night of May 30 1942 was actually the first thousand-bomber raid on Cologne, indeed the first thousand-bomber raid of the war.

Then there is her observation that the Jews had to start to wear the star of David badges. “What good is that going to do?  It can only cause bad feeling even among decent people. People shake their heads in disbelief as they walk by.”

Now that I have at last worked my way through the diary I admire her stoicism, integrity and courage throughout a ghastly period of history and feel I know her much better than I did before.  

Meissen, May 1526

"Your Grace! Your Grace!"

 The person thus addressed – George, Duke of Saxony – once again suspected trouble approaching. There could be no doubt, the chief lady-in-waiting was indignant. Indignant was hardly the right word. She was obviously furious in the extreme.

 The court had betaken itself from Dresden to this lovely castle with its spacious garden to enjoy the blossoming of May. The sun was shining, the scent of flowers and fruit trees was everywhere, yet the idyllic scene was now harshly disturbed by the hofmeisterin, who came down the garden path with garments rustling. A closer look showed that she was even kicking up a small cloud of dust. She must be entirely outside herself, for this woman, charged by the duke with the care of his daughter-in-law, would not otherwise have cast all decorum to the wind and called out to him from such a distance.

What could Elisabeth have got up to now? Duke George was curious whether this hofmeisterin was also about to ask him to remove the heavy burden he had placed on her shoulders in the form of his small, willowy daughter-in-law. At some point he had already ceased to count how many hofmeisterins Elisabeth had already worn out. Elisabeth was unusual. In many respects. She was extraordinarily intelligent, self-assured, strong and free. Her brother Philipp had taught her things one would not expect of a well-bred girl. Elisabeth could skip stones over water, which in itself was rather harmless. But she could also scare the wits out of her ladies-in-waiting by giving a shrill whistle through her fingers. Furthermore, she must have had other teachers beside her brother, for she occasionally came out with the most indelicate sayings, which she then declared to be "ancient Hessian words of wisdom". As if that were not enough, she could also swear as if she were leading three armies, as one of her hofmeisterins had put it.

Such were the thoughts occupying the duke's mind as he saw the chief lady-in-waiting hurrying towards him.

"Your Grace!" she called once again.

Duke George turned to his two councillors and dismissed them with a nod. Hans von Schönberg and Heinrich von Schleinitz obediently stepped back, but were careful to stand close enough to hear each word declaimed by the esteemed hofmeisterin, who now stood, out of breath, in the presence of the duke.

"Yes, Lady ..."

"Köstritz. Countess Eleonore von Köstritz, if it please your Grace."

"Yes, yes, we are quite pleased. Arise!" he demanded impatiently of the no longer youthful lady who had fallen into a deep curtsy before him. Since Duke George was obliged to fear that she would be unable to stand up on her own, he proffered his hand, which she gratefully accepted.

"Well now, my dear Lady Köstritz, your matter seems to be of the utmost urgency."

"It is, indeed, your Grace. Your Grace was recently so kind as to appoint me to be hofmeisterin to your daughter-in-law. For which I am also very grateful to your Grace ..."

"We are very glad, Countess. Then all is in order. We had feared you were not satisfied with the duty entrusted you."

Duke George was now looking into a face which, within a very short time, was taking on the most diverse shades of expression. Lady Köstritz' countenance revealed a struggle between the most humble respect, despair, hope of mercy and a clear will to survive. When it came to Elisabeth, it was apparently a matter of life and death for the poor woman.

"Your Grace is too kind," Lady Köstritz was finally able to stammer, "yet I am afraid that I am no longer up to the task appointed me." She looked almost relieved to have been able to let these words to the duke pass her lips. Messrs. Schönberg and Schleinitz nodded to each other fervently. This was more good news.

"No longer? But you have only been hofmeisterin for three months," said the duke, feigning surprise.

"May your Grace pardon me, it has been exactly two months, three weeks and five days. The young Duchess is too much for me. Just now she put me in a situation ... a situation!" Appalled, the Countess put her hand to her forehead and sighed.

Fortunately, she had closed her eyes to do so and thus failed to see the duke's eyebrows draw up menacingly.

"What sort of situation?" asked the duke, who did not at all like to be addressed in any manner other than clear and concise. The countess, who immediately realised that she would have to control herself if she did not want to annoy the duke, now stood staunchly erect in front of her lord.

"May your Grace forgive me, but I cannot by any stretch of the imagination say this thing to your Grace."

"We shall be neither merciful nor gracious, nor forgive you, if you do not instantly tell us what happened." The duke's patience was at an end.

Schleinitz and Schönberg, leaning forward to soak in every word, hardly dared to breathe.

Now Countess Köstritz hesitatingly reported how she had been walking through the garden with Elisabeth. Once again, she had made a futile attempt to teach her how to take elegant steps. Elisabeth merely replied that she was not a horse to be taught its paces and took the stairs two at a time out of spite. Then, however, they strolled through the back portion of the garden, where one of the gardeners was standing engaged in ... well in something entirely unspeakable. The horrified countess begged Elisabeth to turn away and wanted to take another path just to get away from this shameless man. But Elisabeth called out to him a rhyme which ... no, no, out of the question, Countess Köstritz simply could not let such words escape her lips.

Duke George concluded that one of the gardeners, thinking himself unobserved, had been passing water and Elisabeth had once more brought forth one of her Hessian words of wisdom.

The duke sighed. He had known Elisabeth's mother Anna and father Wilhelm well. He had stood with Elisabeth, her brother Philipp and Anna at Wilhelm's deathbed and consoled Anna. He had helped Anna when the Hessian Estates refused to honour Wilhelm's testament and had even wanted to take her son away from her. Anna had been a strong woman, beautiful and intelligent. Much of this she had passed on to her daughter. But Elisabeth's childhood and youth had been marked by her mother's battle for her son and the right to rule. As well as deprivations, for the regents and guardians had refused to furnish Anna and Elisabeth according to their station. Anna had often been away at meetings of the imperial and state diets. Elisabeth grew up with her foster mother in Marburg, Spangenberg and Felsberg, where manners were obviously anything but princely. To be sure, that is where she will have learned all those things which were held against her at the Dresden court.