Maria von Wedemeyer Weller

von Wedemeyer-Weller died of cancer, in 1977, at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She was survived by her two sons and one stepdaughter. Her ashes are buried at the Wedemeyer family gravesite in Gernsbach, Germany, where a memorial tablet to her, created by Andreas Helmling, was placed in the cemetery chapel in September 2009. Fifteen years after her death, the complete correspondence with Bonhoeffer was published by her elder sister, Ruth-Alice von Bismarck (wife of Klaus von Bismarck) as Brautbriefe Zelle 92 - Dietrich Bonhoeffer / Maria von Wedemeyer 1943-1945. This book has subsequently been translated into English, French, Japanese and other languages.

In 1974, von Wedemeyer-Weller gave a talk on the development of the decompiler at the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).

In 1966, von Wedemeyer-Weller donated the Bonhoeffer letters and manuscripts that she possessed (including Faithfully and Quietly Surrounded by Good Powers, Jonah, The Death of Moses and The Past) to the Houghton Library of Harvard University, with access to them restricted until 2002. She published selected excerpts from the letters in 1967 under the title 'The Other Letters From Prison' in the journal of the Union Theological Seminary. The publication of this article resulted in extensive coverage in the media - with articles on the front page of the New York Times, and in TIME, Newsweek and other publications.

Von Wedemeyer Schniewind initially found work as a statistician, but soon moved on to writing code (in machine language) at the pioneering computer company, Remington Rand UNIVAC. In 1959, she married the American manufacturer Barton Lee Weller. They divorced in 1965.

In 1949, she returned to Germany to marry Paul-Werner Schniewind (born 1923), son of the theologian Julius Schniewind, and they decided to emigrate to the United States. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1955.

Bonhoeffer, and most of the other incarcerated members of the 20th of July plot, were ultimately executed just before the end of the war. Bonhoeffer was hanged at the Flossenbürg concentration camp on 8 April 1945. Bonhoeffer's remaining possessions from his time in prison were returned to his parents, including the letters that Maria had written to him. His parents returned those letters to von Wedemeyer and, as result, she possessed their (essentially) complete correspondence.

Following the war, von Wedemeyer began studing mathematics at the University of Göttingen (1945-1947); then at the University of Frankfurt (1947-1948). From 1948-1950, she continued her studies on a scholarship to Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, graduating from with an MA in 1950.

Less than three months after their engagement, Bonhoeffer was arrested for his activities in resisting the Nazi government. He and von Wedemeyer corresponded during his imprisonment in Tegel Prison and she was permitted to visit him "fairly regularly, at least once a month". After he was implicated in the 20 July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler, Bonhoeffer was transferred to a Gestapo high security prison and was permitted no further contact with her or his family.

von Wedemeyer and Bonhoeffer were reintroduced seven years later when Bonhoeffer was on a writing retreat at Ruth von Kleist-Retzow's country home, Klein Krössin. Notwithstanding their age difference of 18 years — she was 18 years old and he was 36 years old — they developed a rapport. They became engaged on 13 January 1943.

Maria von Wedemeyer-Weller (23 April 1924 – 16 November 1977) was a German-American computer scientist, who emigrated to the US from Germany after the Second World War. She is known in the field of computer science for her role in developing emulation capability.She was also notable as the fiancée of the German Protestant theologian and Resistance worker Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Maria von Wedemeyer was born in 1924 at Pätzig in the Neumark area of Brandenburg to Hans von Wedemeyer, a landowner / gentleman farmer, and his wife Ruth (née Kleist). Maria was the third of their seven children. Relatives came from the Bismarck family and other Prussian noble families. She grew up on her parents' estate at Pätzig.