Marie Strasburger
1905 - 1996

Marie, called Mariele, Anna Dorothea Strasburger was born on April 19, 1905, in Bonn as the daughter of Prof. Julius Strasburger and Marie-Edith Strasburger, née Nothnagel. She had three brothers: Eduard Hermann (1907-1945), Hermann Julius (1909-1985) and Gerhard Oskar Paul (1912-1993). Julius Strasburger's father had a Protestant father, Professor Eduard Strasburger (1844-1912). His mother was Alexandrine von Wertheim (1847-1902). Alexandrine's father, the banker Julius Wertheim, was born in Warsaw and had converted from Judaism to Protestantism in 1844. Her mother Johanna Dorothea Flamm, also born in Warsaw and the daughter of Dawid and Zofia Flamm, had also converted.

The Protestant family moved from Bonn to Breslau in 1911 because the father had been appointed to an associate professorship at the university there. They moved to Frankfurt on the Main in 1913. There, Julius Strasburger became head of the Therapeutikum and the medical outpatient clinic in the city hospital and, in the following year, professor of internal medicine at the newly founded University of Frankfurt on the Main. Julius Strasburger's family lived at Miquel street 44, later renamed Siesmayer street, in Frankfurt's Westend district.

Marie Strasburger wrote in a curriculum vitae from 1931 about her school career: "Die Vorschule absolvierte ich in Bonn, Breslau, Homburg v.d.H. und Frankfurt a.M. Dann besuchte ich 5 Jahre das Lyceum der Victoriaschule zu Frankfurt, anschliessend die Victoria-Oberrealstudienanstalt, die ich Ostern 1924 mit dem Zeugnis der Reife verliess." (I completed pre-school in Bonn, Breslau, Homburg v.d.H. and Frankfurt a.M. Then I attended the Lyceum of the Victoria School in Frankfurt for five years, followed by the Victoria-Oberrealstudienanstalt, which I left at Easter 1924 with a school-leaving certificate.)

In December 1933, Marie Strasburger married Franz Marius Theodor de Böhl Liagre (1882-1976), who was born in Vienna, in Frankfurt on the Main and/or Leiden (Netherlands). He was a Protestant theologian and from 1913 Professor of Hebrew/Old Testament in Groningen and from 1927 Professor of Assyriology at the University of Leiden. They lived in the Netherlands and had four children: Marie Antoinette, called Netteke (born 1934), Eduard (1936), Elisabeth Catharina Dorothea, called Liesje/Elis (1938-2015), and Herman Friedrich Ludwig Otto, born in February 1943.

After graduating from high school at Easter 1924, Marie Strasburger completed a so-called Maidenjahr at the "Wirtschaftliche Frauenschule Reifenstein" (Reifenstein Business School for Women), graduating with the "Seminarmaidenexamen". From April 1926, she studied biology, chemistry and geography at the University of Frankfurt on the Main with the aim of becoming a teacher. In the winter semester of 1927/28, she transferred to the University of Bonn and returned to Frankfurt University for the summer semester of 1928, now majoring in zoology and botany and minoring in geography. On her enrollment card, she continued to note teaching as the goal of her studies. Marie Strasburger finally completed her studies in July 1932.

Marie Strasburger received her doctorate in zoology from the University of Frankfurt on the Main with the thesis "Bau und Funktion des Darmtraktus von Drosophila melanogaster Meigen, sowie Untersuchungen über die Variabilität einzelner Merkmale" (Structure and function of the intestinal tract of Drosophila melanogaster Meigen, and studies on the variability of individual traits). Her dissertation was published in 1932 in volume 140 of the "Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Zoologie" (Journal of Scientific Zoology) and can be found as an offprint in her doctoral file in the University Archives of Frankfurt on the Main.

The evaluation by Prof. Dr. Otto zur Strassen, the first director of the Zoological Institute of the University of Frankfurt from 1914 to 1934 and also director of the Senckenberg Museum, states: "Frl. Strasburger hat ihre Aufgabe mit Fleiß und Eifer durchgeführt. In der Wahl der Wege zeigt [sich] ein vollständiges Urteil, in der Ausführung anerkennenswerte Geschicklichkeit. Besonders erfreulich ist die Klarheit und (endlich einmal wieder!) stilistisch eine Form der Vorstellung." (Miss Strasburger has carried out her task with diligence and zeal. In the choice of paths she has shown complete judgment, in the execution commendable skill. Particularly pleasing is the clarity and [finally once again!] stylistic form of the presentation.)

Marie Strasburger wanted to become a teacher. However, after emigrating to the Netherlands, she was unable to pursue this profession. On the one hand, she took care of the household and her four children. On the other hand, she fell seriously ill with bipolar disorder in 1947. As a result, she was unable to study biology in the Netherlands and was only able to work at the Natural History Museum for a short time.

In July 1930, Professors Walter Behrmann and Matthias Friedwagner recommended the admission of Marie Strasburger, Stud. phil. nat., who lived with her parents at Miquel street 44. Together with Max Tasche, she herself recommended the admission of her brother Eduard Hermann Strasburger the following year. Marie Strasburger was active in the Student Association. In March 1933, she gave a lecture on "Höhengrenzen in den Alpen" (Altitude Limits in the Alps). Her brother Hermann Strasburger had also been a member of the Frankfurt section since March 1928, having been recommended by bank officer Maria Broich (a member since 1927) and Dr. Elias Bergmann (a member since 1922).

We do not currently know whether Marie Strasburger remained a member of the Frankfurt Section of the Alpine Club after emigrating to the Netherlands in 1933. She probably no longer took part in the section's events. However, it remains unclear whether she resigned or was later excluded as a so-called "Mischling".

Marie de Liagre Böhl was living in the Netherlands when the German Wehrmacht occupied the country in May 1940. As a so-called "2nd degree Mischling", married to a Christian and mother of four Christian children, she was not threatened with arrest or deportation. As a result, she and her children survived the occupation unscathed. However, Herman de Liagre Böhl writes that his father, Marie's husband, Franz de Liagre Böhl, was interrogated several times by officers of the Security Service (SD). Marie de Liagre Böhl died in Milsbeek (Netherlands) in November 1996.

Marielle's father Julius Strasburger was forcibly retired on October 1, 1934, because of his Jewish ancestors, although he was a so-called "Frontkämpfer" (front-line fighter) in the First World War and holder of the Iron Cross I Class (awarded in December 1917) as well as a Prussian civil servant before 1914. Shortly afterwards, he died of a heart attack. Walter Schmitthenner wrote: "Niemand bezweifelte, daß der Tod des zuvor gesunden Mannes durch diese ihn tief kränkende und ihm im Grunde unverständliche Behandlung verursacht war." (No one doubted that the death of the previously healthy man was caused by this treatment, which deeply offended him and was basically incomprehensible to him.)

Her brother Eduard H. Strasburger was persecuted by the National Socialists because of his Jewish ancestors as a so-called "Mischling 2nd degree". He was therefore no longer allowed to habilitate in the German Reich after 1933, meaning that the university career he had aspired to was impossible due to persecution. In 1938, he went to the Netherlands and worked at the Amsterdam Institute for Brain Research on the recommendation of Marielle's husband, Prof. Dr. Franz Marius Theodor de Liagre Böhl (1882-1976). He returned to Frankfurt on the Main at Easter 1940 and worked from May to September 1940 in the laboratory at the mental hospital at the City and University of Frankfurt run by Prof. Karl Kleist. In October 1940, Eduard H. Strasburger was drafted into the Wehrmacht. In 1943, he joined a medical unit and reached the rank of medical corporal. After September 1943, he fought in Italy and later on the Eastern Front. He had been missing in action since March 1945 and was finally declared dead in 1961.

His brother Hermann Strasburger was also not allowed to habilitate in National Socialist Germany. According to a document from March 1948 in the Frankfurt University Archives, he was persecuted as a "Mischling 2nd degree" and was therefore definitively banned from habilitating in November 1936. He was only able to publish a few historical articles, such as Nobiles and Optimates in the famous Realenzyklopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft. In May 1940, he also had to join the Wehrmacht, was sent to the Eastern Front at the end of 1942 and was seriously wounded there in April 1943, returning as a "Schwerkriegsbeschädigter" (severely war-damaged person). He was only released from the military hospital in May 1945. Hermann Strasburger eventually became Professor of Ancient History in Frankfurt on the Main and Freiburg (im Breisgau). He died in Switzerland in 1985 and was buried in Freiburg.