Let me tell the story of Frau Solf, widow of
that great German Liberal Dr. Wilhelm Solf. I have verified the relevant facts ; I am able to mention the names of those concerned ; the account which I give of her attitude and activities is permissible and correct. Dr. Solf, in the course of his long and distinguished career, had always been a champion of humane principles and an advocate
of close co-operation between Germany and the western- demo- cracies. When the collapse came in 1918 he served for a while as President Ebert's first Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. During his long tenure of the post of German Ambassador to Japan he worked in intimate collaboration with Sir Charles Eliot, a fellow scholar and ambassador. Before his death in 1936 he sought by every means in his power to convince the Nazi leaders that their policy of cruelty and recklessness would bring eventual disgrace and ruin to the German people. His widow and her daughter, Grafin Lagi von Ballestrem, continued his work ; the elder son, who was studying at Oxford when the war broke out, was interned by us and eventually released. In Berlin the "Solfkreis " or " Solf circle " was gradually formed. Its leading members, apart from Frau Solf and her daughter, were Richard Kuenzer, Albrecht Bernstorff, Maximilian von Hagen, and Father Erxleben. They tried to rescue and to feed individual Jews ; Graf Bernstorff and Grafin Lagi von Ballestrem actually sheltered Jews in their own rooms.
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