Elsa Brändström

Elsa Brändström (*March 26, 1888 – †March 4, 1948)

Life
Elsa Brändström was born in 1888 in St. Petersburg, the daughter of the Military Attache at the Swedish Embassy, Edvard Brändström, and his wife Anna Eschelsson. In 1891, when Elsa was three years old, Edvard Brändström and his family returned to Sweden. In 1906, Brändström, now a General, became the Swedish Ambassador at the court of Tsar Nicholas II and returned to St Petersburg.

Elsa spent her childhood in Linköping in Sweden. From 1906 to 1908, she studied at the Anna Sandström Teachers Training College in Stockholm but returned to St. Petersburg in 1908. Her mother died in 1913. Elsa was in St. Petersburg at the outbreak of World War I and volunteered for a position as a nurse in the Russian army.

In 1915, she went to Siberia for the Swedish Red Cross, to introduce basic medical treatment for the German POWs. Back in St. Petersburg, she began the establishment of a Swedish Aid organization. Her work was severely hindered by the outburst of the October Revolution in the year 1917. In 1918, the Russian authorities withdrew her work permit but, nevertheless, she did not give up. Between 1919 and 1920, she made several trips to Siberia until she was arrested in Omsk in 1920. After her release, she moved back to Sweden and organized fund-raising for POWs.

In 1922 her book, “Unter Kriegsgefangen in Rußland und Sibirien 1914-1920“ (Among POWs in Russia and Siberia 1914-1920) was published. From then onwards she looked after former POWs in a rehabilitation sanatorium for home coming German soldiers in Marienborn-Schmeckwitz. She bought a mill named “Schreibermühle“ close to Lychen (Uckermark) and used it as resocialization centre for former POWs. Schreibermühle had extensive lands including fields, forest and meadows on which potatoes and other crops could be grown. Thus was mist useful at that time because the German Mark was an unstable currency and lost value from day to day. In 1923, she undertook a six month tour in the USA, giving lectures to raise money for a new home for children deceased and traumatized POW’s. On her trip she raised US$100,00 and travelled to 65 towns. This amount was unexpectedly high, since the American citizens by that time were not very friendly towards Germans. In January 1924, she founded a children's home “Neusorge” (Mittweida) which had room for more than 200 orphans and children in need. In 1925, a fund raising trip to Sweden followed. In 1929, she travelled to Russia again and in the same year she married Robert Ulich, a Professor of  Pedagogy. Afterwards, she moved together with him to Dresden. In 1931, she sold thel “Schreibermühle“ and donated her other home, Neusorge, to the Welfare Centre in Leipzig. She founded the “Elsa-Brändström-Foundation-for Women” (the foundation awarded scholarships to children from Neusorge). On 3 January 1932, her daughter Brita was born in Dresden.

In 1933, Robert Ulich accepted a lectureship at Harvard University and in consequence the family moved to the USA. Here Elsa gave aid to newly arrived German and Austrian refugees. In 1939, she opened the “Window-Shop”, a restaurant which gave work opportunities for refugees in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

After World War II ended, she started to raise funds for children in need in Germany, and as a result, the organizations CARE International (Cooperative for American Relief in Europe) and CRALOG (Council of Relief Agencies Licensed for Operation in Germany) were established. She undertook a final lecture tour in Europe on behalf of the “Save the Children Fund”. She could not undertake her last planned journey to Germany because of illness. She died in 1948 of bone cancer.

Because of her commitment to POWs, she became famous as a “patron saint” for soldiers. In Germany, many streets, schools and institutions are named after her.

Work

 * 1921 Bland Krigsfångar i Ryssland och Sibirien 1914-1920 (Among POWs in Russia and Siberia)
 * World War II - Initiator of aid institutions CARE International und CRALOG

Literature

 * C.Mabel Richmers: Among prisoners of war in Russia and Siberia 1926, Mutchinson and Co. Ltd.
 * Magdalena Padberg: Das Leben der Elsa Brändström. Ein Hilfswerk in drei Erdteilen. Herder. Freiburg, 1989. ISBN 3451086417.
 * Gerhard Zimmermann: Liebe hat Augen, Hände und Füße. ISBN 3761550170
 * Dietmar Kruczek: Eine Frau zwischen den Fronten. Das Leben der Elsa Brändström. Aussaat. 2000. ISBN 3761551584.
 * Heinz Vonhoff: Elsa Brändström. Ein Leben für Gefangene, Verfolgte und Hilflose. Claudius. München, 1982. ISBN 3583310039.
 * Norgard Kohlhagen: Elsa Brändström. Die Frau, die man Engel nannte. Eine Biographie. 1992. ISBN 3791819836.