Before the United States worried that the Countess was a Nazi Spy, she was accused of being a spy for France and the Soviet Union. These accusations were brought by jealous, spiteful family members. But, let’s not rush . . .
Rosie Goldschmidt was precocious. She read voraciously and, as a teenager, had an unusual relationship with her teacher, whom she called Michael. They had secret meetings at museums and parks. This went on until their secret meetings were discovered and the teacher was sent a’packin. “Michael,” Rosie wrote, “had made me at home in the world; the intellectual interests that he had instilled were lasting and so were the friends I made through him.” (Prelude 70). Of these early days, Rosie noted in her memoir: “’How is it that you are so sure of yourself, my dear?’ my only girlfriend used to say in those days. I really don’t ever remember having felt unsure of myself, but it was a sort of ‘drawing-room sureness.’ The nicest thing that was said to me in this period of my life was that I had a ‘listening soul.’” (Id.)
Graduating high school in 1917, Rosie attended University in Munich but found it lacking and transferred to the University of Heidelberg where she put herself on fast forward and graduated with a PhD in Sociology – summa cum laude in 1920.
In the years after World War I and the signing of the Versailles Treaty, Germany experienced hyper-inflation. It was in Berlin, working for a banking house that Rosie watched her clients “get rid of their hourly depreciating marks” and saw how “[p]eople bought anything that was supposed to represent ‘real value’ with scarcely any investigation. They reckoned as ‘real values,’ besides houses, carpets, antiques, and the trousseaux bought ahead for daughters hardly born or thought of, the shares in various industries.” (Id.) She also described how the Versailles Treaty was “for every German . . . a thorn in the flesh.” (Prelude 115) It was, in part, Germans’ hatred of the Versailles Treaty and post-war inflation that allowed Hitler to rise to power in the 1930’s.
Rosie’s interest in older men continued and soon after arriving in Berlin, she married a Jewish gynecologist, Dr. Ernst Graefenberg, who was seventeen years her senior. Their marriage lasted for “1,090 days,” as Rosie recalled. After divorcing the good Doctor, Rosie moved to Paris and began her career as a journalist.
But things got more interesting when she moved back to Berlin and began to work for the Ullstein press, a Jewish-owned publishing conglomerate – think a Jewish Rupert Murdock – they owned a book publishing business, but also newspapers, and magazines. They controlled four daily papers in Berlin alone with a circulation of 800,000; four weeklies with a circulation of 1,000,000 and ten monthlies. The company was founded in 1877 by Leopold Ullstein. The company sent Rosie to Geneva to cover the League of Nations. There in Geneva is where Rosie met “Kobra — Karl Ritter, who became a Nazi diplomat and operative. After the war, in 1947, Ritter was arrested, sentenced to crimes against humanity for being complicit in the deportation of Danish, French and Hungarian Jews to the death camps and for war crimes. He was sentenced in 1949 to four years imprisonment which, with time-served, allowed for his release on May 15, 1949, at age 65.” (Prelude 18)
Rosie, however, wrote that Kobra was the “love of her life” and she would do anything to keep the relationship going. In a novel-worthy plot twist, in November of 1929, Rosie married Franz Ullstein, head of the Ullstein publishing company. Rosie’s mother disapproved and told her daughter that Franz, at 63, was even too old for her. Rosie agreed to Franz’s marriage proposal because she somehow believed that marrying Franz would allow her relationship with the budding Nazi, Ritter, to continue and flourish. She convinced herself that as Frau Franz Ullstein she would command a position of power in Berlin that would captivate and entertain Kobra.
This marriage didn’t sit well with the rest of the Ullstein family. To them Rosie was a “blond hussy” – “gold digger” – waiting for the aged rich husband to kick and inherit it all. These family members used their vast media network to slander Rosie and accused her of being a spy for the Soviet Union and for France. What was it about Rosie that continually led to the label of “spy?” The “Ullstein Affair” as it was known, was a huge scandal and was in all the papers for months. Also, her not so secret affair with Kobra became public and was fodder for the tabloids. She and Franz divorced, which made Rosie rich. At the end of a year and a half long trial in Berlin, the judge declared that Rosie was NOT a spy for France or the Soviet Union and the Ullsteins had to apologize.
This embarrassment to the Ullstein family occurred just a few years before the Nazis came to power and “aryanized” the Ullstein company. A November 2, 1933 headline The New York Time read:
NAZIS SWALLOW UP ULLSTEIN PRESS, LARGEST IN REICH; Family Will Lose Control of the Concern It Founded in 1877 in Transaction Today.
The Ullstein family was forced to cede control of the company to the Reich and were left with a non-voting, minority share of the company. Franz was allowed to stay on as a director, but the rest of the family was out. The value of the company, according to the Times article was 60 million marks ($1,714,000 – today – approx. $32 million). In 1941 Franz made it to the United States and lived in New York until his death on November 12, 1945. He died in a car accident on Columbus and 79th. Queary whether the Countess and Franz ever visited during the four years they both lived in New York city? I don’t know.
The Countess’s first memoir, Prelude to the Past, ends in 1930, before the Nazi’s rise to power, with the triumph of the trial, the divorce from Franz and the devastating news that Kobra – the love of her life – broke off the relationship. It seems, however, that there was a reunion on the Hindenburg flight in 1936. Maybe Kobra’s interest was renewed with Rosie’s new impressive title – Countess.
In the next and final Countess episode, I will share the Countess’ experience as a journalist in Bucharest, Romania in 1940 and we shall continue the quest to uncover her persona as a spy.
So You Want To Write A Holocaust Book? 