Remark/Remarque’s Sister: Elfriede Scholz (beheaded)

Part of a travelling exhibit at Peace Museums

Born: Mar. 25, 1903 Osnabrück, Germany – Beheaded (with an axe): Dec. 16, 1943 Berlin-Plötzensee, Germany

Elfriede Scholz was the younger sister of famed German novelist Erich Maria Remarque who wrote the great anti-war novel “All Quiet on the Western Front”. At the time of her death she was a married 40-year-old seamstress and mother of two children.Scholz was wrongly convicted in Berlin by the National Socialist (Nazi) regime on October 29, 1943 of treason for allegedly “undermining morality” (“Wehrkraftzersetzung”) for telling her landlady privately that the war was lost for Germany. Her trial lasted only one hour and was presided over by People’s Court Judge Roland Freisler. The prosecution’s two witnesses were not sworn in prior to testifying, because Freisler said they would tell the truth without being under oath. Freisler was quite clear that Scholz was being tried in place of her famed brother who was then living in exile in Switzerland. The judge stated “Ihr Bruder ist uns entwischt, aber Sie werden uns nicht entwischen!” -Your brother is beyond our reach, but you will not escape us!
Elfriede Scholz was found guilty and sentenced to death. All pleas for clemency, including from her husband who was serving in the German army at the front, were disregarded, and she was beheaded on December 16, 1943 with an axe. The cost of her prosecution, imprisonment and execution was then billed to Scholz’s sister Erna.
In Germany it is recognized that the rule of law in her case was only a facade, and her case is one of “judicial murder.”
In 2005 a film documentary about Scholz was produced, “Death To Pay – Elfriede Scholz, Sister of Erich Maria Remarque”.”

Her brother dedicated his novel “Spark of Life” to her. In 1968 Elfriede Scholz Straße, a street in Osnabruck, Germany, was named in her honor. Her grave, if any, is unknown and it can be speculated that her remains were cremetated by the Nazis.