No. 12 Great Ormond Street

The Mysterious Case of Dora Fabian and Mathilde Wurm

An online talk on the activities of German anti-Nazi activists in 1930s Bloomsbury by Charmian Brinson of the Research Centre for German & Austrian Exile Studies at the Institute of Modern Languages Research. The deaths of two German Socialist exiles, Dora Fabian and Mathilde Wurm, at 12 Great Ormond Street in 1935, in far from straightforward circumstances, were a cause célèbre of their day.

They were of particular concern to the German exile community in Britain and elsewhere, and to the British intellectual left, who feared not only that National Socialist agents might have been involved but also that the British authorities were intent on blocking the case’s thorough investigation. Setting the Fabian-Wurm affair in its context, the talk traces the lives and careers of the two dead women and examines the position of the earliest political exiles from Germany, many of whom were based in Bloomsbury.

The talk will be introduced by Clare George. 

Attendance free; advance online booking essential.