Effi Biedrzynski (1910–2004)

Effi Biedrzynski was born in Schweina, Germany, and grew up there and in Bad Liebenstein. She became interested in Goethe and Weimar literature at an early age. In 1934, she married Oswald Bendemann, a philosopher and scholar whose family had lived in Weimar for several generations. She became an expert in the great classical period of the city, and was known as the "grande dame" of Goethe and Weimar literature. She edited a couple of books on Goethe and an elaborate Goethe pocket calendar published in Zurich and Munich each year from 1964 to 2003; it had a regular circulation of about 40,000.