A Countess and the Nuremberg Trials

A recently published book by Natalie Livingstone entitled “The Nuremberg Women” highlights the role played by women during and after the Nuremberg trials, a role, apart from female interpreters and reporters such as Rebecca West and Erika Mann, that has been underplayed and even suppressed. With her book, the author, grand-daughter of Holocaust survivors, tries to set the record straight and speaks about the many women whose contribution has been deliberately overlooked.

One of the women whose role has never been examined until now is the Hungarian Countess Ingeborg Kalnoky. There is a residential area in Nuremberg where the Countess ran a guest house during and after the trials where she hosted both survivors and wives of the Nazi elite. Her story of survival is truly remarkable.

The Countess lived with her husband Count Hugo and their three children in Kalnoky Castle in Eastern Transylvania in the late 1930s. To escape the war and advancing Russian troops, she moved with her husband and children first to Budapest and then to western Hungary, The family, minus her husband, ended up hiding in a castle in Plzen, Czechoslovakia. She was nine months pregnant.

American troops discovered her and the children at the castle. The soldiers offered to transport her further west to Nuremberg. She was on the verge of giving birth and was taken to her new location in a tank! At the hospital, she gave birth to her fourth child, a daughter. She had been forced to leave her three sons behind who later joined her thanks once again with the help of US soldiers.

While recovering from the birth, she was asked by the Americans about her background. She spoke several languages and had left immediately after Hitler came to power, two aspects in her favour. They told her they wanted her to be in charge of a guest house for the spouses and defendants in the upcoming trials. She had little choice and agreed to fulfil this role. She did, however have misgivings about having to make small talk with Nazi wives. Nevertheless, she had not only survived but had by chance landed on her feet. Her former pampered life was now a distant dream as she had been forced by circumstance to play a small yet indirect role in the most famous war crimes trials in history.

Ann E.