Baroness von Varo Who was this lady?

Discussions on the role played by and situation of women in the Third Reich not covered in the other sections. Hosted by Vikki.
Post Reply
User avatar
panzertruppe2001
Member
Posts: 662
Joined: 13 Apr 2004, 18:24
Location: argentina

Baroness von Varo Who was this lady?

#1

Post by panzertruppe2001 » 06 Apr 2008, 20:36

Hello people. I am reading the "The Last of Hitler" by Trevor Roper and sometimes he mentioned a lady, Baroness von Varo that was in the Führerbunker.
This is what the author says about her in the note of sources in page 249:
von Varo, Baroness: Was casually in second (SS) Bunker until 1st May. Was present at Hitler's first leave-taking at 2:30 hours on 29th April.
Strange but this woman is only mentioned once in this very forum http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=8619
Who was this woman?
Panzertruppe2001

User avatar
Auseklis
Member
Posts: 710
Joined: 20 May 2005, 11:26
Location: Heart of the Ruhr-Valley

Re: Baroness von Varo Who was this lady?

#2

Post by Auseklis » 06 Apr 2008, 21:01

It seems that this source includes some information on her, but it's in rumanian... Anybody around who can help out with reading latinum languages? :D

http://www.zf.ro/articol_89775/ultimii_ ... r__v_.html


User avatar
Heimatschuss
Member
Posts: 2597
Joined: 22 May 2006, 23:50
Location: Deutschland

Re: Baroness von Varo Who was this lady?

#3

Post by Heimatschuss » 20 Apr 2008, 14:56

Hello,
this baroness von Varo really seems to be a woman of mystery.

A family 'de Varo, Baron du Magny', later known as 'Counts von Varo' once existed. They owned the castle 'Haus Caen' near the Dutch border for several centuries but died out in 1876. Their estates were inherited by the Geyr von Schweppenburg family.
http://www.dsl-24000.de/index.php/lexik ... =Haus_Caen
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haus_Caen
http://books.google.de/books?id=HdkEAAA ... X5OE&hl=de

This appears to be the only case of a 'von Varo' familiy in Germany. There are no further hints in the internet. The German phone book contains about a dozen entries for 'Varo' but going by the first names these must be almost exclusively first or second generation immigrants from Spain. Nothing on 'von Varo' there either.

In the introduction to the third edition of his book Trevor-Roper claims to have interrogated von Varo in her mother's home in Bückeburg (which is close to Minden).
http://books.google.de/books?id=CXQMVmO ... 2R1E&hl=de

I see three basic possibilities:
a) Trevor-Roper fell for an imposter.
b) Trevor-Roper invented the whole story.
c) Trevor-Roper used a pseudonym for this witness. Perhaps the woman did not want anyone to know that she had had some kind of relationship to the Führerhauptquartier. (After all the interrogation took place in 1945, nobody knew what would come next.) Alternatively she may not have wanted people to know that she was in Berlin when the Russians came.

The article Auseklis linked to is by a Micheal A. Musmanno. Musmanno was one of the judges of the Nuremberg trials and also wrote a book about the last days of Hitler ('Ten Days To Die', 1950).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Musmanno
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_A._Musmanno

An abbridged German version of Musmanno's book was released in 2004 ('Hitlers letzte Zeugen', Herbig Verlag, 2004). Apparently the Roumanian article is based on that book. Going by the comments on http://www.amazon.de/Hitlers-letzte-Zeu ... merReviews the problem with Musmanno's books (1950, 2004) is that parts of them are completely fictional due to lack of witnesses. Hence I would not place too much confidence in details provided there.

My guess at the moment is that the mysterious baroness is a female offspring of the Geyr von Schweppenburg family that chose the name of her rather obscure ancestors as a pseudonym.

Best regards
Torsten

User avatar
Patzinak
Member
Posts: 534
Joined: 25 Jan 2008, 18:15
Location: Toronto

Re: Baroness von Varo Who was this lady?

#4

Post by Patzinak » 20 Apr 2008, 17:08

Heimatschuss wrote:[…] An abbridged German version of Musmanno's book was released in 2004 ('Hitlers letzte Zeugen', Herbig Verlag, 2004). Apparently the Roumanian article is based on that book.[…]
The article consists of excerpts from a Romanian translation of Musmanno, about to be published at that time. It is not stated which edition the translation was based on, but the title was the Romanian equivalent of the German title. There is nothing new there.

--Patzinak

MontysCaravan
Member
Posts: 46
Joined: 21 Apr 2008, 00:39

Re: Baroness von Varo Who was this lady?

#5

Post by MontysCaravan » 21 Apr 2008, 02:56

Hmmm a very interesting thread.

I'd suggest that Baroness von Varo was a minor european aristocrat, perhaps related to the houses of Habsburg-Lorraine or Bourbon, with possibly some connection to the Duchies of Modena or Parma.

Varo is a small town in Lombardy, Italy which has found itself under Austrian rule during various times most notedly as a result of the Congress of Vienna 1814-1815 before annexation some forty years later by the Kingdom of Sardinia.

Following the defeat of the first world war the Austrian monarchy was dissolved, along with it the official use of titles related to it, with many territories handed over to other European states. However once Germany had reunited with Austria the rules regarding titles were overlooked so many families went back to using old titles.

What's most fascinating is that she could have been there, at that time, but effectively be unknown to us. 8O

User avatar
Auseklis
Member
Posts: 710
Joined: 20 May 2005, 11:26
Location: Heart of the Ruhr-Valley

Re: Baroness von Varo Who was this lady?

#6

Post by Auseklis » 21 Apr 2008, 10:50

As Trevor Roper states in his book:
...and the Baroness von Varo, a casual visitor in Hitler's Bunker, who had been discovered by a British journalist in Berlin, and who was traced and interrogated by me in her mother's home at Bueckeburg.
Maybe a research in Bückeburg (i.e. newspaper archive) will bring up something.

MontysCaravan
Member
Posts: 46
Joined: 21 Apr 2008, 00:39

Re: Baroness von Varo Who was this lady?

#7

Post by MontysCaravan » 21 Apr 2008, 23:09

That's interesting. I did think for a while that Roper might have just cribbed from Musmanno being as there's just two years between the publication of their books which both briefly feature the Baroness.

As you suggest a local archive might turn something up.

MontysCaravan
Member
Posts: 46
Joined: 21 Apr 2008, 00:39

Re: Baroness von Varo Who was this lady?

#8

Post by MontysCaravan » 26 Jun 2008, 02:20

Having exhausted all avenues searching for "Varo" and looking for that as an aristocratic name over hundreds of years of noble history both of which proved totally fruitless I've finally cracked exactly who this women was.

Her full name is actually Irmengard Baroness von Varo zu Bagion, and she was sheltering from the bombings in an adjacent bunker due to her friendship with Ruger an officer of Hitler's Escort Commando. She attempted to leave Berlin with Kempe. She was questioned in 1948 by Musmanno at Stein Castle. Transcripts of that interrogation, along with others are available here: http://cdm256101.cdmhost.com/cdm-p256101coll8/ , her's especially her efforts to get out of Berlin are really quite gripping.

cheers,

User avatar
Auseklis
Member
Posts: 710
Joined: 20 May 2005, 11:26
Location: Heart of the Ruhr-Valley

Re: Baroness von Varo Who was this lady?

#9

Post by Auseklis » 26 Jun 2008, 10:15

Good find! Thank you for sharing!

User avatar
Bernd R
Member
Posts: 4637
Joined: 01 Feb 2006, 16:12
Location: Bavaria, Germany

Re: Baroness von Varo Who was this lady?

#10

Post by Bernd R » 28 Jun 2008, 21:04

MontysCaravan,

more than answering a question 100%. Forum at its best ! Thanks for providing this find !

Bernd

User avatar
sobel
Member
Posts: 755
Joined: 05 Jan 2007, 20:20
Location: Britain

Re: Baroness von Varo Who was this lady?

#11

Post by sobel » 03 Jul 2008, 16:16

Bernd R wrote:MontysCaravan,
more than answering a question 100%. Forum at its best ! Thanks for providing this find !
Bernd
I agree a great find, forum at it's best
regards
Sobel

MontysCaravan
Member
Posts: 46
Joined: 21 Apr 2008, 00:39

Re: Baroness von Varo Who was this lady?

#12

Post by MontysCaravan » 13 Jul 2008, 02:52

Happy to help, I don't post much so I try to make up for that with what I do post. :)

It's quite amazing just how amateur historians (the bulk of us I believe) can band together and come up with answers which can live on, wasn't long ago you'd come up with a question which would remain a cul de sac.

User avatar
Heimatschuss
Member
Posts: 2597
Joined: 22 May 2006, 23:50
Location: Deutschland

Re: Baroness von Varo Who was this lady?

#13

Post by Heimatschuss » 02 May 2010, 16:47

Hello,

the Berlin address books for 1941, 1942 and 1943 (last one during WWII) list a journalist Andor von Varo living at Mackensenstraße 19 in Berlin.
See http://adressbuch.zlb.de/searchResultAd ... ory=adress
Presumably the husband of the mysterious baronesse. His first name implies Hungarian decent which may explain why it's so difficult to find information on the family.

Bagion may refer to the village Bágyon in Transsylvania. Today it's Romania but the region was contested between Hungary and Romania for all the first half of the 20th century. See http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A1gyon

Best regards
Torsten

rekem
New member
Posts: 1
Joined: 13 Oct 2010, 18:01

Re: Baroness von Varo Who was this lady?

#14

Post by rekem » 13 Oct 2010, 20:58

The "Gotha" has completely different facts about this family, originally Varodi from Milano:

Varo, kath. - Reichsadelsstand Prag 26.5.1599 (für Joan senior dictus Le Gaucher, Kais. Obersten d. Kav. in Belgien, u. Joan junior, Kais. Rittmeister u. Schloßkmdten, fratres Varodi); lothr. Baron de Mervaux (primog.) 10.5.1649 (für Jacques Simon de Varo , Seigneur de Magny, Vougecourt et Mervaux, Hzgl. lothr. Obersten); span. Gfnstand (je
primog.) 25.10.1692 (für dessen Söhne Africain de Warods, Baron de Mervaux, auf Straelen bei Geldern, Gouv. von Venlo, u. Philipp Franz de Warods, Baron de Magny, auf Caen bei Straelen, niederld. Rittmeister); Eintragung in die Adelsmatrikel der preuß. Rheinprovinz 1829 (für Carl Ludwig Franz Gfn v. V a r o auf Caen, Kgl. preuß. PLt).
W.: Get., oben in B. balkenweise 3 g. Sterne, unten in G. pfahlweise 4 gr. Schlangen nebeneinander; Gfnkr.
L: GGT G 1868 ÄG bis 1878 und 1879 (Nekrolog) - Herbert M. Schleicher, Ernst v. Oidtman u. seine geneal.-herald. Sammlung 5 (Köln 1994), S. 620-630.

Le Gaucher meaning "the stranger, alien" here probably "the Italian".
Le Magny (Vosges) belonged to Burgundy and Lorraine alternately.

However the last Count Varo died in 1876, bequeathing everythig to the related Geyr v. Schweppenburg family.
No Baron or Count Varo lived later on. So it is very likely that "Our Lady of the Führerbunker" in fact was a baronesse Geyr playing with names.

VON THERMANN
Member
Posts: 197
Joined: 27 Oct 2004, 21:41
Location: ARGENTINA

Re: Baroness von Varo Who was this lady?

#15

Post by VON THERMANN » 19 Aug 2019, 19:38

von Varo and Mussmanno
Attachments
IMG_0668.jpg

Post Reply

Return to “Women in the Reich”