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Bombshell Ludwig Leidig Copyright 2013 All rights reserved — Ludwig Leidig No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission, in writing, from the publisher. ttcs pty. ltd. Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Co. 12620 FM 1960, Suite A4-507 Houston, TX 77065 www.sbpra.com ISBN: 978-1-62857-149-3 Typography and page composition by J. K. Eckert & Company This book is dedicated to Barbara in recognition of her courage and her fight for freedom. Contents Foreword . vii Preface and Acknowledgments . ix Introduction . xi Chapter 1—Early Life . 1 Chapter 2—An African Adventure, 1936 . 7 Chapter 3—The Böttcherstrasse, Hitler, and Focke-Wulf . 15 Chapter 4—Life with Roselius. 27 Chapter 5—Another World War. 35 Chapter 6—The Death of Ludwig Roselius and the Missing Will . 55 Chapter 7—Life after Death . 61 Chapter 8—Bombed into Submission . 83 Chapter 9—Corresponding with Dr. Leidig. 101 Chapter 10—The English Books . 151 Chapter 11—Life in Post-war Germany. 157 Chapter 12—Life in Australia . 171 Chapter 13—Barbara Returns to Germany. 183 Appendixes . 189 Bibliography . 233 About the Author. 235 Index . 237 v Foreword Incredible as it may seem, this is a true story. The documents and letters on which it is based were always there, although at the bottom of a trunk, and I first remember reading snippets of them over fifty years ago. Even today, many people do not want the truth emerging as it may upset the ruling para- digm. My mother, Barbara Leidig (née Götte or Goette), died in October 1997 at age eighty-nine, in Adelaide, Australia; and for the last fifteen years I have been piecing together her puzzling life during the Third Reich in Nazi Ger- many. This book has taken just over a year to write with a great deal of research and editing. Thinking about this story has occupied my whole life. Shortly before Barbara died, she told me that I would eventually find everything. Who was Dr. Ludwig Roselius? How did an American multinational cor- poration (ITT) become majority shareholder in the German aircraft manufacturer Focke-Wulf during World War II? Why did Hitler change his mind when Dr. Roselius’ museums, art collections, and above all, his cultural and reli- gious views clashed sharply with Nazi dogma? Why did Barbara risk her life and why was she willing to sacrifice everything for this man? This book deals with a great adventure story that happened during a tumul- tuous century. Barbara, a modern, intelligent, and liberated female, a sophisti- cated woman of the world, was “all class” according to a friend who met her in the 1970s. She was highly disciplined, with a love for travel, challenges, and even dangerous events, a heroine with a guardian angel. She takes the reader along at a fast pace, and there is excitement at every turn. Some events were quite disturbing, but as she told her husband when they married, life would certainly not be boring. Bombshell is historically factual and it deals with good and evil, money and power, a brutal dictatorship, and the need for women’s rights. Barbara often vii viii BOMBSHELL told us that if there were a knock on the door at 3 a.m., then it was probably the end. Who are the good guys and who are the villains? It has all finally been laid bare. Seventy years of cover-ups, intentional and unintentional, are examined here. A riveting account would be an understatement. I invite the reader to participate in a most exciting, unusual, and important story that I have had the privilege to reveal. —Ludwig Leidig, Christmas, 2012 Preface and Acknowledgments My mother, Barbara, deserves posthumous praise for the meticulous records she kept. Although unintentional, the letters and other correspondence she treasured have enabled her family and others to experience, not only her own fascinating story, but also an insight into German families before and after World War II. I would sincerely like to thank my editor, Karen Collins, for her belief in Barbara’s story, and Kevin Lower, my researcher, who provided me with a great deal of new material. I am greatly indebted to both of them. My daughter, brother, and nephews are also to be praised for the support they have given me during the writing of this book. Special thanks go to German President Joachim Gauck, who kindly assisted me with inquiries to authorities in Bremen. I thank the many support- ers in Bremen including the State Archives, and historians Dr. Brigitte Hamann, Arn Strohmeyer, and Lukas Aufgebauer. Locally, I would like to express my gratitude to the staff of the Burnside and Payneham libraries that assisted me with computer technology and encouraged me at all times. Profes- sor Elizabeth Tumasonis, John Strehlow, Dr. Max Lohe, Ron and Julia Curtis, Chris Rothe, Russell Jamison, Dr. Maurice Schild, and Dr. Martin Davey also provided valuable and constructive criticism. ix Introduction In 1935, when twenty-six-year-old Barbara Goette (or Götte) was about to start her PhD in philosophy, she met renowned Bremen industrialist and huge global player, Dr. Lud- wig Roselius. Before World War I, Ludwig Roselius had established himself in New York by manufac- turing decaffeinated coffee through his Kaffee HAG Corpora- tion. When Dr. Roselius asked Barbara to put her studies on hold to join him in the HAG conglom- erate, she agreed, and over time became his closest collaborator. She was propelled into a sequence of astonishing, exciting, and dangerous events. Over a nine-year period, Barbara saw the world; she travelled first-class, stayed in the best hotels, ate at the most exclu- sive restaurants, and met people we still read about today. She wrote articles and books with Dr. Roselius, and nursed him during his many bouts of illness until Dr. Roselius and Barbara (around 1936) his death from an embolism in 1943. At the time, it was easy to put the Nazis and a world war to the back of her mind, and in later years, Barbara acknowledged how privileged she was to have survived such turbulent times in style, while others were far less fortunate. xi xii BOMBSHELL After Barbara’s death in 1997, I inherited a treasure trove of documents dating from almost the turn of the century. Many were written in the old Ger- man script, not used after 1941, which have taken many years to translate. While I knew something of my mother’s life in Germany, the information contained in the documents reinforced for me how fascinating her story really was. Finally, in 2011, together with my friend Kevin, I began comprehensive investigations into the lives of both my mother and Ludwig Roselius in pre- and post-war Germany. Being bilingual, I was able to access and interpret accounts in both written and spoken German, including telephone conversa- tions with historians, Arn Strohmeyer and Dr Brigitte Hamann, whose advice has proved invaluable; relatives and other contacts still living in Germany have all helped me to piece together my mother’s story. This account explores the special relationship between Barbara and Rose- lius and his ongoing ill-health; the restoration and destruction of his beloved Böttcherstrasse, a quaint street in Bremen renowned for its museums and expressionist architecture; his connections with the Nazi Party and American tycoons, including Henry Ford and Colonel Sosthenes Behn; his involvement with aircraft manufacturer, Focke-Wulf; the disappearance of the codicil to his will in 1943; and his death at the Hotel Kaiserhof in Berlin, where both Hitler and Göring had suites. Considerable intrigue surrounded Roselius’ political leanings, business dealings, and acquaintances. Translated documents, letters, telegrams, diary extracts, photographs, and the stories my mother shared with my brother and me as we were growing up provide an impression of the couple’s relationship, including their families, friends, hobbies, achievements, and disappointments. This story also looks at Barbara’s life after the death of Roselius—the contin- uation of her studies, her marriage, the birth of her sons, the family’s move to Australia, and her husband’s tragic death. It is the story of my mother, Barbara Leidig (née Götte), an intelligent, independent, and hardworking individual, who was ahead of her time, and whose life spanned two world wars, two continents, and two men: one, her soul mate, a clever, shrewd, but kindly billionaire whose business dealings and associates, by virtue of the dark period in which he lived, continue even today to be questioned; and the other, an academic, the father of her children whom she loved, but who lived always in the shadow of the other. xiii 1 Early Life In Naumburg, Germany, on July 26, 1908, Heinrich and Helene Götte welcomed Lucie Helene Barbara Hildegard Götte to their family. Lucie was their first daughter, and a sister to twelve-year-old Ivo. Heinrich was a provin- cial court judge and, because of his work, the family relo- cated every seven years to various cities across Ger- many. The Göttes were wealthy, well connected, and respected, and little Lucie grew into an inquisitive, confident, but polite child who adapted easily to new situations and people. When Lucie was two, the family moved to Posen1 where they stayed for the next seven years before settling in Kas- sel in central Germany. A few years later, Lucie told her parents that she didn’t like her name and wanted to be called Barbara.

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