Marie Louise von Scheliha

Marie Louisa Emilia Sofia Edle von Scheliha (born Marie Louise von Medinger; 21 May 1904 – 2 April 2003) was a German noblewoman and wife of the resistance fighter Rudolf von Scheliha. As a child, von Scheliha grew up in Karlštejn Castle and was privately educated before attending the University of Oxford and the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts. In 1927, she met and married the diplomat Rudolf von Scheliha and became a diplomats wife, working in different diplomatic missions in Czechoslovakia, Turkey and later Poland during the 1930's. With the coming of the Nazis, the couple began to consciously resist in the late-1930's, helping friends escape the Nazis. When her husband became the director of the Information department in the Federal Foreign Office, the couple learned of the true nature of the Nazis and were able to pass information on Aktion T4 and the Final Solution to the allies. Inevitably, the Nazis discovered her husbands activities and both were arrested. While she was released in November 1943, her husband was tried and executed in December 1942 at Plötzensee Prison, as a member of the Rote Kapelle.

After the war, she began a campaign to rehabilitate her husbands reputation, who was seen as a traitor, that took several decades. In the mid-1980's she received help from the retired diplomat Ulrich Sahm who began writing a biography on her husband. By 1995, her husband was officially rehabilitated and was seen as "daring and honourable resistance fighter", unconnected to the Rote Kapelle.