The Newport woman who lived in Germany during two world wars and Hitler’s rule

In the coming decades however, she and her husband endured more than four years of forced separation - when he was interned as an 'enemy alien' in Britain during the First World War - before living for many years under the heavy yoke of Nazism, after moving to Mr Wulff's hometown of Hamburg.

Theirs however, was a resolute relationship that survived both the First and Second World Wars, and the tragedy of losing their second child.

And it was one in which Mabel Wulff displayed resourcefulness and courage in spades, not least as the resolute caretaker of Hamburg's English Church for some 40 years.

This was a period that took in the rise and fall of Hitler's Third Reich, and heroic efforts to save the church from Britsh bombs that ravaged the city, and was a role that saw her awarded a Brtiish Empire Medal in the 1950s.

Now a book has been published about Mabel Wulff's extraordinary life.

Eddie Wulff, her grandson, was contacted by a German publisher who has now put out a book about her.

Mr Wulff spoke to the South Wales Argus about his grandmother's life.

Mrs Wulff was born Mabel Amelia Phillips on September 3 1887.

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She grew up in Newport and, after she left school, worked at the Mission for Seamen where she fell in love with German sailor, Max Wilhelm Ludwig Wulff.

Max had left the navy and was running a café on Alexandra Road in Pill.

When she left Newport for Hamburg after the First World War, she knew nobody and could not speak any German.

Mabel’s youngest son, Leonard Wulff, born in Nepwort in 1913, found himself in a Reich Labour Service Camp in 1934, but soon became ill with what was presumably meningitis.

He sadly died on the 23rd June that same year.

Mrs Wulff became the caretaker for the English Church in Hamburg in the early 1920s, but after Adolf Hitler came to power in the early 1930s, he banned church groups, explained her grandson.

"She protected the Church from the Gestapo, who would pay the Wulff’s many visits during the war to question them," he said.

"Some of the first soldiers to come by the church, after the war, happened to be men from the South Wales Borderers.

"Mabel called down to them offering them a ‘cuppa’, and one soldier upon recognising the accent, replied that they already had plenty and entered the church for a cup of tea and a chat."

When the Wulff’s could at last come to Wales again, in the 1950s, they visited the family in Newport and Eddie Wulff recalls going on a picnic in the Wye Valley.

He remembers many fond memories of moments spent with his grandmother.

“I remember shopping in Newport Market with her when I was younger, and she wanted to buy some apples," said Mr Wulff.

“She wanted the ones at the front and them only.”

When shopping for his wedding, Mabel went into House of Fraser (known as Howells at the time) looking for a new hat and had the women in the shop running around after her.”

She stayed on as the caretaker of the church well into her seventies, and in 1964 was given a vote of thanks for 40 years of service.

After losing her husband and two sons, Mabel decided to move back to Newport in 1964 where her daughter-in-law Doris and grandchildren Eddie and Sylvia were living.

Mabel and Max Wulff stayed together despite the hard ships; forced years of separation due to war, which also saw their countries as enemies, and the tragic loss of their son during the Third Reich.

The courageous church caretaker, died at the age of 90 on 22nd April 1978 in Newport where she was born.

Books can be purchased directly through its author Madeleine Resuhr at mad.res@t-online.de