Ruth von Kleist-Retzow (by birth, the Countess of Zedlitz-Trützschler: 4 February 1867 – 2 October 1945) was born into the German nobility and married into a Prussian army family.
She was a particular supporter of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who became a regular guest, and whose students would frequently find a refuge at von Kleist-Retzow's Pomeranian estate.
It was here, when she was sixteen, that she first met Jürgen von Kleist-Retzow, a land owner and government administrator from Western Pomerania in the north.
Running a profitable farm on the sandy Pomeranian soil was always a challenge, and in material terms the marriage to a frequently indebted landowner and middle-ranking Prussian administrator left Ruth's quality of life disappointingly diminished, but her commitment to traditional aristocratic standards was undimmed, and she was attracted to the simple unquestioning adherence to patriarchal protestant values and obligations that she found in her husband's family.
The next year Jürgen von Kleist-Retzow booked himself a stay at a sanatorium, but while on his way he was obliged to stop off at Dresden where he died on 14 December 1897 of a kidney illness.
[1][2] At the urging of her father, Ruth von Kleist-Retzow decided to take on sole responsibility for the manor, and for the two villages that it contained.
With her sons conscripted into the army, and two of her three daughters married, Ruth von Kleist-Retzow moved back to Kieckow and assumed direct control of the family estate.
With her children now being self-supporting, money worries seem to have subsided, and she found the leisure to ponder and discuss with friends the theological, political and social questions which had hitherto been left to fester at the back of her mind.
[8] Her book demonstrated Ruth von Kleist-Retzow's interest in the role of her own social class in the changed democratic conditions of the times.
She called on landowners such as herself to acknowledge their responsibilities as "stewards of God" ("Haushalter Gottes") in the management of their estates, which should be used for the good of the people (...der Menschen).
[9] She also involve herself in the "Berneuchen Movement" (Christian youth circle) which took its name from the home of the Viebahn family at Berneuchchen Manor near Neudamm (Landsberg).
[2][13] In Stettin she very soon came across the large group of enthusiasts around the progressive theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was in charge at the Evangelical Priest Training Establishment ("Predigerseminar") of the recently formed anti-Nazi "Confessing Church" ("Bekennende Kirche") at Finkenwalde, just outside the city on its south side.