Introduction

Abstract

The introduction provides background on the life of Dr Marianne Angermann, a German biochemist, up until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936. Raised in Langenberg (North-Rhine/Wesphalia) Angermann's father, Konrad, was the town's mayor. She studied first at the University of Greifswald and later at the University of Freiburg where she completed a PhD in 1928. She went on to work at the University of Düsseldorf and, again, Freiburg under Siegfried Josef Thannhauser. During this time she met her future husband, Dr Franz David Bielschowsy. In 1933 Bielschowsky, a Jew, was forced by the National Socialists to leave Germany. He took up a position at the University of Madrid, working with Professor Carlos Jiménez Díaz who had established a medical research facility there (Instituto de investigaciones médicas). Angermann joined him there in early 1936. Angermann's letters home to her parents provide a picture of everyday life in Madrid but also make frequent, if fleeting, references to the political turmoil in the Spanish Second Republic.

Keywords: Angermann, Bielschowsky, Spain, Madrid, Civil War, National Socialism, Germany, Jews, Carlos Jiménez Díaz, Instituto de investigaciones médicas, Ciudad universitaria, biochemistry, Dunedin, New Zealand, refugees, cancer research