Erich Vermehren
| Erich Vermehren | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 23, 1919 |
| Died | April 28, 2005 (aged 85) |
| Other names | Erich Vermeeren de Saventhem Eric Maria de Saventhem |
Erich Vermehren, also known as Erich Vermeeren de Saventhem or Eric Maria de Saventhem, (December 23, 1919 – April 28, 2005) was an ardent anti-Nazi, an agent of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence organization, and later a leading Catholic Traditionalist.
Vermehren was born in Lübeck to a family of lawyers whose opposition to the Nazi regime was such that they were considered politically unreliable. Erich's repeated refusal to join the Hitler Youth marked him as unfit to "represent German youth", and he was prevented from taking up a Rhodes scholarship at Oxford University; his passport was revoked, making it impossible for him to travel outside Germany.
Vermehren converted to Roman Catholicism in 1939, shortly after his elder sister Isa, when he met the Countess Elisabeth von Plettenberg, a member of one of Germany's leading Catholic families. They married in October 1941. The Plettenburgs were also opposed to Hitler, and clandestinely distributed the banned anti-Nazi Papal encyclical Mit brennender Sorge in 1937. As a result of this, Elisabeth's parents were imprisoned by the Gestapo, but she was able to secure their release after three weeks. In addition, she herself was repeatedly questioned about her "subversive" activities.
Despite the Vermehrens' unwillingness to openly resist the Nazi regime, they inevitably found themselves in anti-Nazi circles, several of which centered on Vermehren's cousin Adam von Trott zu Solz, and both felt that their lives were at risk while they remained in Germany. Vermehren was excluded from military service due to a childhood injury, but managed to get himself assigned to the Abwehr late in 1943 with the help of Von Trott and Paul Leverkühn, the Abwehr station chief in Istanbul.
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