The family lived in Reinbek castle, originally the hunting lodge in Friedrichsruh, which they acquired in 1874 and turned into a hotel.
The approximately 70-room castle was only open in summer, during which the children lived with a nanny and a governess in one of two small houses next door.
[1] In 1914, at the age of 35, Specht returned to the University of Göttingen to study mathematics, finishing as an Oberlehrerin, certified to teach the higher grades.
[3] The following year, she met the philosopher Leonard Nelson, an acquaintance that changed her way of thinking[1] and developed into a close working and personal relationship.
[4] In 1932, she was one of the 33 signatories of the ISK's Dringender Appell, which called for a united front of communists and socialists in the fight against National Socialism.
[3] After her release, she worked in London on political re-education for a Nazi-free Germany, developing a concept based on the needs of youth who had been raised with Nazism and shattered by war.
[2] Specht's personal papers are located at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Bonn, in the Archive of Social Democracy.
The collection contains extensive correspondence, files, records on the history of Walkemühle, the schools in Denmark and England, manuscripts and Specht's published writings on education and politics.