Erika von Brockdorff, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Erika von Brockdorff

German resistance fighter against the Nazi régime

Date of Birth: 29-Apr-1911

Place of Birth: Kołobrzeg, West Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland

Date of Death: 13-May-1943

Profession: resistance fighter, spy

Nationality: German Empire

Zodiac Sign: Taurus

Erika von Brockdorff (née Schönfeldt) (29 April 1911 – 13 May 1943) was a German resistance fighter against the Nazi régime during the Second World War.
Brockdorff was a member of what the Nazi authorities termed the Red Orchestra resistance movement.Brockdorff was born in Kolberg (Kolobrzeg), Province of Pomerania, on Pomerania's Baltic Sea coast.
Her father worked for the post office.
From 1929, after finishing middle school and housekeeping school in Magdeburg, she worked in Berlin as a housekeeper and a model, and also, after additional training in shorthand typing, as an office specialist.
In 1937, she married the sculptor Graf Cay–Hugo von Brockdorff, and shortly thereafter, their daughter Saskia was born. From 1941, Brockdorff put her flat at Hans Coppi's resistance movement's disposal as their radio headquarters.
She was soon arrested along with the other Red Orchestra members and sent to Charlottenburg Women's Prison.
She was sentenced at the Reichskriegsgericht to ten years in labour prison (Zuchthaus) in January 1943.
Adolf Hitler was not satisfied with this, however, and on the very same day as the judgment, on his orders, the sentence was changed to death.
Together with Mildred Harnack and Elfriede Paul, she waited another four months for the sentence to be carried out.
On the evening of 13 May 1943, she was put to death, by guillotine, along with thirteen other persons at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin.