![Bundesarchiv Bild 145 Bild-F035073-0018, Marion Gräfin Dönhoff Friedenspreis des Buchhandels](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Bundesarchiv_Bild_145_Bild-F035073-0018%2C_Marion_Gr%C3%A4fin_D%C3%B6nhoff_Friedenspreis_des_Buchhandels.jpg)
Marion Hedda Ilse Gräfin von Dönhoff (2 December 1909 – 11 March 2002) was a German
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...
and
publisher
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
who participated in the resistance against
Nazism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) i ...
, along with
Helmuth James Graf von Moltke
Helmuth James Graf von Moltke (11 March 1907 – 23 January 1945) 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. He w ...
,
Peter Yorck von Wartenburg
Peter Graf Yorck von Wartenburg (13 November 1904 – 8 August 1944) was a German jurist and a member of the German Resistance against Nazism. He studied law and politics in Bonn and Breslau from 1923 to 1926, gaining his doctorate in Breslau i ...
, and
Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg
Colonel Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (; 15 November 1907 – 21 July 1944) was a German army officer best known for his failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair.
Despite ...
. After the war, she became one of Germany's leading journalists and intellectuals, working for over 55 years as an editor and later publisher of the
Hamburg
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-based weekly newspaper ''
Die Zeit''.
Biography
![Schloss Friedrichstein](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Schloss_Friedrichstein.jpg)
Dönhoff was born in
East Prussia in 1909 into the old aristocratic
Dönhoff family at Schloss Friedrichstein
[ Kilian Heck / Christian Thielemann (eds.): Friedrichstein. The castle of the Counts of Dönhoff in East Prussia . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich and Berlin 2006 and 2019, ISBN 978-3-422-07361-6](
pl) (
de) (now in the
Gurkyevsky District of the Russian
oblast of Kaliningrad). Her father was Count
August von Dönhoff, a diplomat and member of the Prussian House of Lords and the German Parliament. As a diplomat, he was located in
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
for some time, and became a close friend of Senator
Carl Schurz. Dönhoff discusses in her memoirs her father's involvement in one of the last episodes of the Indian wars, the
White River War.
Her mother was born Maria von Lepel (1869–1940). Marion studied economics at
Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...
, where
National Socialist
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
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
, french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese
, neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS), ...
, where she earned her doctorate. But she later returned to her family home at
Quittainen in 1938, and joined the resistance movement, which led to questioning by the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...
after a
failed assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944. Although many of her fellow resistance activists were executed, she was released reportedly because her name was not found in any of the documents seized by the Nazis.
![Bundesarchiv Bild 145 Bild-F035071-0006, Marion Gräfin Dönhoff Friedenspreis des Buchhandels](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Bundesarchiv_Bild_145_Bild-F035071-0006%2C_Marion_Gr%C3%A4fin_D%C3%B6nhoff_Friedenspreis_des_Buchhandels.jpg)
In January 1945, as
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
troops rolled into the region, Dönhoff fled East Prussia, travelling seven weeks on horseback before reaching
Hamburg
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. She recounted her journey in a 1962 book of essays called ''Names No One Mentions Anymore''.
The castle in which she grew up and which was destroyed by the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...
in January 1945, is within the borders of what is now part of Russia (
Kaliningrad oblast
Kaliningrad Oblast (russian: Калинингра́дская о́бласть, translit=Kaliningradskaya oblast') is the westernmost federal subject of Russia. It is a semi-exclave situated on the Baltic Sea. The largest city and admin ...
), yet 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. In August 1954, she temporarily left the newspaper in protest against articles by
Richard Tüngel, who had published, inter alia, a text of Nazi constitutional lawyer
Carl Schmitt
Carl Schmitt (; 11 July 1888 – 7 April 1985) was a German jurist, political theorist, and prominent member of the Nazi Party. Schmitt wrote extensively about the effective wielding of political power. A conservative theorist, he is noted as ...
and went to London to work for ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
''. Soon afterwards, however, she returned to
Hamburg
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, and was promoted to deputy editor-in-chief in 1955, then editor-in-chief in 1968, and publisher in 1972. She was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
in 1990.
She was involved in helping refugees settle in West Germany from East Germany and other parts of Europe.
At the time of her death on 11 March 2002, aged 92, Dönhoff was still co-publisher of the influential newspaper. 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
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
and
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...
.
Published works
English
* ''Foe into Friend: The Makers of the New Germany from Konrad Adenauer to Helmut Schmidt'', translated by
Gabriele Annan, Palgrave Macmillan, 1982;
* "A UN Volunteer Force: The Prospects", ''New York Review of Books'', 15 July 1993 (contributor)
German
* ''Namen die keiner mehr nennt'', Eugen Diederichs Verlag, Köln 1962
* ''Amerikanische Wechselbäder : Beobachtungen und Kommentare aus vier Jahrzehnten, Stuttgart, 1983
* ''Weit ist der Weg nach Osten: Berichte und Betrachtungen aus fünf Jahrzehnten''
* ''Kindheit in Ostpreussen'', 1988
* ''Preussen—Mass und Masslosigkeit'', 1990
* ''Die Biene'', Bibliogr. Inst. + Brockhaus, 1993;
* ''Meyers Kleine Kinderbibliothek: Groß und Klein'', Bibliographisches Institut & F.A. Brockhaus AG, 1993;
*'' 'Um der Ehre willen', Erinnerungen an die Freunde vom 20 Juli.'', Berlin 1994,
Awards and honors
* 1971
Peace Prize of the German Book Trade
is an international peace prize awarded annually by the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (English: ''German Publishers and Booksellers Association''), which runs the Frankfurt Book Fair. The award ceremony is held in the Paulskirche in ...
* 1982 Honorary Senator of the
University of Hamburg
The University of Hamburg (german: link=no, Universität Hamburg, also referred to as UHH) is a public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('' Allgemeines Vo ...
* 1990 Member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
* 1994 Four Freedom Award for the Freedom of Speech
* 1999 Honorary citizen of the city of
Hamburg
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References
Bibliography
* Dönhoff, Marion Gräfin. Um der Ehre willen', Erinnerungen an die Freunde vom 20 Juli''. Berlin (1994), Bundesrepublik,
* Heck, Kilian & Christian Thielemann (Hrsg.): Friedrichstein. Das Schloß der Grafen von Dönhoff in Ostpreußen.
Deutscher Kunstverlag
The Deutscher Kunstverlag (DKV) is an educational publishing house with offices in Berlin and Munich. The publisher specializes in books about art, cultural history, architecture, and historic preservation.
History
Deutscher Kunstverlag was fo ...
, München/Berlin 2006;
* Von Schlabrendorff, Fabian. Offiziere gegen Hitler, a.a. O., 1945/1990 Bundesrepublik,
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Donhoff, Marion Grafin
1909 births
2002 deaths
People from Kaliningrad Oblast
German women journalists
German journalists
20th-century German journalists
20th-century German newspaper publishers (people)
German newspaper publishers (people)
German countesses
German resistance members
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Place of death missing
Die Zeit founders
Recipients of the Four Freedoms Award
Die Zeit editors