Maria von Wedemeyer Weller

Maria von Wedemeyer Weller (23 April 1924 – 16 November 1977) was an American computer scientist, who emigrated from Germany to the US after the Second World War. She was known in the field of computer science for her role in developing emulation capability. She was also notable as having been the fiancée of the German Protestant theologian and Resistance worker Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Life

Maria von Wedemeyer was born in 1924 at Pätzig in the Neumark area of Brandenburg to Hans von Wedemeyer, a landowner / gentleman farmer, and his wife Ruth (née von Kleist-Retzow). Maria was the third of their seven children.

Relationship with Bonhoeffer Von Wedemeyer first met Bonhoeffer in the urban home of Ruth von Kleist-Retzow, her maternal grandmother, when she was 11 or 12 years old.

Less than three months after their engagement, Bonhoeffer was arrested for his activities in resisting the Nazi government. He and von Wedemeyer corresponded during his imprisonment in Tegel Prison and she was permitted to visit him "fairly regularly, at least once a month".

Donation of Bonhoeffer letters

In 1966, she donated the Bonhoeffer letters and manuscripts that she possessed (including the original of Faithfully and Quietly Surrounded by Good Powers, Jonah, The Death of Moses and The Past) to the Houghton Library of Harvard University, with access to them initially restricted until her death, then later further restricted until 2002 (25 years following her death). She published selected excerpts from the letters in 1967 under the title 'The Other Letters From Prison' in the journal of the Union Theological Seminary. The publication of this article resulted in extensive coverage in the media - with articles on the front page of the New York Times, and in TIME, Newsweek and other publications.

Death She died of cancer, in 1977, at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She was survived by her two sons and one stepdaughter. Fifteen years after her death, the complete correspondence with Bonhoeffer was published by her elder sister, Ruth-Alice von Bismarck (wife of Klaus von Bismarck) as Brautbriefe Zelle 92 - Dietrich Bonhoeffer / Maria von Wedemeyer 1943-1945. This book has subsequently been translated into English, French, Japanese and other languages.