The Postcard
A postcard bearing no publisher's name that was posted in East London on Friday the 15th. November 1907 to:
Miss E. Isaacs,
Bed 11,
Helene Raphael Ward,
London Hospital.
The Helene Raphael Ward still exists at the London, and is currently (2019) used for Surgery, Emergency Gynaecology and Booked Gynaecology.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Dear Esther,
By the time you receive
this I hope you will be
much better.
I daresay I shall come
and see you tomorrow.
All at home send their
love.
I remain your loving
sister Rose".
Miss Marie Studholme
Marie Studholme was born Caroline Maria Lupton in Bradford on Tuesday the 10th. September 1872.
Marie was an English actress and singer known for her supporting and sometimes starring rôles in Victorian and Edwardian musical comedy. Her attractive features made her one of the most popular postcard beauties of the day.
Her theatre career spanned 1892 to 1915, ending her career in music hall comedy sketches. She was one of George Edwardes' famous Gaiety Girls.
In 1907 she studied Jujitsu with Yoko Tani. She loved animals, and was often photographed with them. She charged sixpence to autograph her postcards and gave the proceeds to animal and theatrical charities.
Marie lived out her retirement in Hampstead. Studholme Court, a council block, was later built on part of the garden of her former Hampstead home, Croftway, off the Finchley Road.
Death of Marie Studholme
Marie died at Croftway on Monday the 10th. March 1930 from rheumatic fever aged 57 years, 6 months and 1 day, or. to put it another way, exactly 21,000 days. She was buried in the St. Marylebone Cemetery in East Finchley.
Marie left an estate valued at £58,303, which was a very considerable sum of money in 1930.
Claus von Stauffenberg
So what else happened on the day that Rose posted the card?
Well, the 15th. November 1907 marked the birth of Claus Philipp Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg. He was a German army officer. He was also a "Graf" (i.e. Count) and Schenk (i.e., Cupbearer)—an additional hereditary noble title.
He took part in the attack on Poland, the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the Tunisian Campaign during the Second World War.
The Hitler Assassination Attempt
Along with Henning von Tresckow and Hans Oster, Stauffenberg was one of the central figures of the German Resistance movement within the Wehrmacht.
After several unsuccessful tries by Stauffenberg to meet Hitler, Göring and Himmler when they were together, he went ahead with the attempt at Wolfsschanze on the 20th. July 1944.
Stauffenberg entered the briefing room carrying a briefcase containing two small bombs. The location had unexpectedly been changed from the subterranean Führerbunker to Albert Speer's wooden hut due to it being a hot summer's day.
He left the room to arm the first bomb with specially adapted pliers, a task made difficult because he had lost his right hand and had only three fingers on his left.
A guard knocked and opened the door, urging him to hurry as the meeting was about to begin. As a result, Stauffenberg was able to arm only one of the two bombs. He returned to the briefing room, where he placed the briefcase under the conference table, as close as he could to Hitler.
Some minutes later, he excused himself and left the room. After his exit, the briefcase was moved by Colonel Heinz Brandt.
When the explosion tore through the hut, Stauffenberg was convinced that no one in the room could have survived. Although four people were killed and almost all survivors were injured, Hitler himself was shielded from the blast by the heavy, solid-oak conference table leg, which Colonel Brandt had placed the briefcase bomb behind, and was only slightly wounded.
Stauffenberg quickly left and drove to the nearby airfield. After his return to Berlin, Stauffenberg immediately began to motivate his friends to initiate the second phase: the military coup against the Nazi leaders.
However when Joseph Goebbels announced by radio that Hitler had survived and later, after Hitler spoke on the state radio, the conspirators realised that the coup had failed. They were tracked to their Bendlerstrasse offices and overpowered after a brief shoot-out, during which Stauffenberg was wounded in the shoulder.
Claus von Stauffenberg's Execution
In an attempt to save his own life, co-conspirator General Friedrich Fromm charged other conspirators in an impromptu court martial, and condemned the ringleaders of the conspiracy to death.
Stauffenberg, his aide 1st Lieutenant Werner von Haeften, General Friedrich Olbricht, and Colonel Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim were executed before 1:00 in the morning on the 21st. July 1944 by a makeshift firing squad in the courtyard of the Bendlerblock, which was lit by the headlights of a truck.
Stauffenberg was third in line to be executed, with Lieutenant von Haeften after. However, when it was Stauffenberg's turn, Lieutenant von Haeften placed himself between the firing squad and Stauffenberg, and received the bullets meant for Stauffenberg.
When his turn came, Stauffenberg spoke his last words, "Es lebe das heilige Deutschland!" ("Long live our sacred Germany!"), or, possibly, "Es lebe das geheime Deutschland!" ("Long live the secret Germany!").
Fromm ordered that the executed officers (his former co-conspirators) receive an immediate burial with military honours in the Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof in Berlin. The next day, however, Stauffenberg's body was exhumed by the SS, stripped of his medals and insignia, and cremated.
Berthold von Stauffenberg
Another central figure in the plot was Stauffenberg's brother, Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg. On the 10th. August 1944, Berthold was tried before a special "People's Court" that had been established by Hitler for political offences.
Berthold was one of eight conspirators executed by slow strangulation in Plötzensee Prison, Berlin, later that day.
Before he was killed, Berthold was strangled and then revived multiple times. The entire execution and multiple resuscitations were filmed for Hitler to view at his leisure.
Further Consequences of the Attempt
Hitler used the 20th. July Plot as an excuse to destroy anyone he feared would oppose him. More than 200 were condemned in show trials and executed., and the traditional military salute was replaced with the Nazi salute.
Eventually, over 20,000 Germans were killed or sent to concentration camps in the purge.
