Marion Dönhoff
Encyclopedia
Marion Hedda Ilse Gräfin von Dönhoff (December 2, 1909 – March 11, 2002) was a German
journalist
who participated in the resistance against Hitler's National Socialists
with Helmuth James Graf von Moltke
, Peter Yorck von Wartenburg
, and Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg
. After the war, she became one of the leading German journalists and intellectuals. She worked over 55 years for the Hamburg-based, weekly newspaper Die Zeit
, as an editor and later publisher.
in 1909. Dönhoff's father was Count August Karl von Dönhoff, a diplomat and member of the Prussian House of Lords and the German Parliament. As a diplomat, he was located in Washington for some time, and became a close friend of Senator Carl Schurz
. Dönhoff wrote, in her memoirs, how her father was involved in one of the last episodes of the Indian wars, the White River War
. Her mother was Maria Gräfin von Dönhoff, born Von Lepel (1869–1940).
As a young woman, she studied economics at Frankfurt
, where National Socialist sympathizers were said to have called her the "red countess" for her defiance once they gained power in 1933. She left Germany soon after, moving to Basel
, Switzerland
, where she earned her doctorate. But she returned to her family home at Quittainen
(Kwitajny), East Prussia
, in 1938, and joined the resistance movement, which led to questioning by the Gestapo
after a failed assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944. Though many of her fellow resistance activists were executed, she was released. While she had secretly helped to develop the organization of the government that was to take over in East Prussia once the resistance succeeded in removing Hitler, her name was not found in any of the documents seized by the Nazis. Out of modesty, she had not presumed to have herself included, which modesty ended up saving her.
In January 1945, as Soviet troops rolled into the region, Dönhoff fled East Prussia, travelling seven weeks on horseback before reaching Hamburg
. She recounted her journey in a 1962 book of essays, recollecting her beloved homeland in what today is Russia
(Kaliningrad oblast
) and Poland
(Warmia and Masuria). Despite her deep emotional attachment to the region where she grew up, she was one of the first public figures to endorse the finality of the border between Germany and Poland, which had been established after the Second World War.
In 1946, Dönhoff joined the fledgling, Hamburg-based, intellectual weekly Die Zeit
as political editor. She was promoted later to deputy editor-in-chief in 1955, then editor-in-chief in 1968, and publisher in 1972. At the time of her death, Monday March 11, 2002 at the age of 92, Dönhoff was still co-publisher of the influential newspaper and was widely regarded as a voice of wisdom, tolerance and morality. She was the author of more than twenty books, including political and historical analyses of Germany as well as commentary on U.S. foreign policy
. Among many international distinctions, Dönhoff was awarded honorary doctorates by Columbia University
and Georgetown University
.
German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
who participated in the resistance against Hitler's National Socialists
National Socialist German Workers Party
The National Socialist German Workers' Party , commonly known in English as the Nazi Party, was a political party in Germany between 1920 and 1945. Its predecessor, the German Workers' Party , existed from 1919 to 1920...
with Helmuth James Graf von Moltke
Helmuth James Graf von Moltke
Helmuth James Graf von Moltke was a German jurist who, as a draftee in the German Abwehr, acted to subvert German human-rights abuses of people in territories occupied by Germany during World War II and subsequently became a founding member of the Kreisau Circle resistance group, whose members...
, Peter Yorck von Wartenburg
Peter Yorck von Wartenburg
Peter Graf Yorck von Wartenburg was a German jurist and a member of the German Resistance against Nazism.-Biography:...
, and Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg
Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg
Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg commonly referred to as Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was a German army officer and Catholic aristocrat who was one of the leading members of the failed 20 July plot of 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler and remove the Nazi Party from...
. After the war, she became one of the leading German journalists and intellectuals. She worked over 55 years for the Hamburg-based, weekly newspaper Die Zeit
Die Zeit
Die Zeit is a German nationwide weekly newspaper that is highly respected for its quality journalism.With a circulation of 488,036 and an estimated readership of slightly above 2 million, it is the most widely read German weekly newspaper...
, as an editor and later publisher.
Biography
Dönhoff was born to an old aristocratic family ("Gräfin" means "Countess") in Schloss Friedrichstein, East PrussiaEast Prussia
East Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
in 1909. Dönhoff's father was Count August Karl von Dönhoff, a diplomat and member of the Prussian House of Lords and the German Parliament. As a diplomat, he was located in Washington for some time, and became a close friend of Senator Carl Schurz
Carl Schurz
Carl Christian Schurz was a German revolutionary, American statesman and reformer, and Union Army General in the American Civil War. He was also an accomplished journalist, newspaper editor and orator, who in 1869 became the first German-born American elected to the United States Senate.His wife,...
. Dönhoff wrote, in her memoirs, how her father was involved in one of the last episodes of the Indian wars, the White River War
White River War
The White River War, also known as the Ute War, or the Ute Campaign, was fought between the White River Utes and the United States Army in 1879, resulting in the forced removal of the White River Utes and the Uncompahgre Utes from Colorado, and the reduction in the Southern Utes' land holdings...
. Her mother was Maria Gräfin von Dönhoff, born Von Lepel (1869–1940).
As a young woman, she studied economics at Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
, where National Socialist sympathizers were said to have called her the "red countess" for her defiance once they gained power in 1933. She left Germany soon after, moving to Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, where she earned her doctorate. But she returned to her family home at Quittainen
Kwitajny
Kwitajny is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Pasłęk, within Elbląg County, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It lies approximately east of Pasłęk, east of Elbląg, and north-west of the regional capital Olsztyn....
(Kwitajny), East Prussia
East Prussia
East Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
, in 1938, and joined the resistance movement, which led to questioning by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
after a failed assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944. Though many of her fellow resistance activists were executed, she was released. While she had secretly helped to develop the organization of the government that was to take over in East Prussia once the resistance succeeded in removing Hitler, her name was not found in any of the documents seized by the Nazis. Out of modesty, she had not presumed to have herself included, which modesty ended up saving her.
In January 1945, as Soviet troops rolled into the region, Dönhoff fled East Prussia, travelling seven weeks on horseback before reaching Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
. She recounted her journey in a 1962 book of essays, recollecting her beloved homeland in what today is Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
(Kaliningrad oblast
Kaliningrad Oblast
Kaliningrad Oblast is a federal subject of Russia situated on the Baltic coast. It has a population of The oblast forms the westernmost part of the Russian Federation, but it has no land connection to the rest of Russia. Since its creation it has been an exclave of the Russian SFSR and then the...
) and Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
(Warmia and Masuria). Despite her deep emotional attachment to the region where she grew up, she was one of the first public figures to endorse the finality of the border between Germany and Poland, which had been established after the Second World War.
In 1946, Dönhoff joined the fledgling, Hamburg-based, intellectual weekly Die Zeit
Die Zeit
Die Zeit is a German nationwide weekly newspaper that is highly respected for its quality journalism.With a circulation of 488,036 and an estimated readership of slightly above 2 million, it is the most widely read German weekly newspaper...
as political editor. She was promoted later to deputy editor-in-chief in 1955, then editor-in-chief in 1968, and publisher in 1972. At the time of her death, Monday March 11, 2002 at the age of 92, Dönhoff was still co-publisher of the influential newspaper and was widely regarded as a voice of wisdom, tolerance and morality. She was the author of more than twenty books, including political and historical analyses of Germany as well as commentary on U.S. foreign policy
Foreign policy
A country's foreign policy, also called the foreign relations policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals within international relations milieu. The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries...
. Among many international distinctions, Dönhoff was awarded honorary doctorates by Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
.
Published works
English- Kindheit in Ostpreußen – Before the Storm: Memories of My Youth in Old Prussia, translated by Jean Steinberg, foreword by George F. Kennan, 1990, ISBN 0394582551
- Foe into Friend: The Makers of the New Germany from Konrad Adenauer to Helmut Schmidt, translated by Gabriele Annan, Palgrave Macmillan, 1982, ISBN 0312296924
- Contributed to A UN Volunteer Force: The Prospects. New York Review of Books, July 15, 1993
German
- Namen die keiner mehr nennt, Eugen Diederichs Verlag, Köln 1962
- Weit ist der Weg nach Osten: Berichte und Betrachtungen aus fünf Jahrzehnten
- Preussen—Mass und Masslosigkeit, 1990
- Die Biene, Bibliogr. Inst. + Brockhaus, 1993, ISBN 3411086211
- Meyers Kleine Kinderbibliothek: Groß und Klein,Bibliographisches Institut & F.A. Brockhaus AG, 1993, ISBN 3411086416
- 'Um der Ehre willen', Erinnerungen an die Freunde vom 20 Juli., Berlin 1994,