Marion Hedda Ilse Gräfin von Dönhoff (2 December 1909 – 11 March 2002) was a German

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

and

publisher Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

who participated in the resistance against

Nazism Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power, it was fre ...

, along with Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, Peter Yorck von Wartenburg, and

Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (; 15 November 1907 – 21 July 1944) was a German German Army (1935–1945), army officer who is best known for his 20 July plot, failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf ...

. 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 Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

-based weekly newspaper ''

Die Zeit (, ) is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles. History The first edition of was ...

''.

Early life and ancestry

Dönhoff was born in

East Prussia East Prussia was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's ...

in 1909 into an old aristocratic House of Dönhoff at Friedrichstein Palace 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 (now in the Guryevsky District of the Russian oblast of Kaliningrad). She was the youngest daughter of Count August von Dönhoff, a diplomat and member of the

Prussian House of Lords The Prussian House of Lords () in Berlin was the upper house of the Landtag of Prussia (), the parliament of Prussia from 1850 to 1918. Together with the lower house, the House of Representatives (), it formed the Prussian bicameral legislature ...

and the German Parliament and his wife, Maria von Lepel (1869–1940), daughter of Wilhelm Friedrich Karl von Lepel (1829-1888) and Countess Helene von Schlippenbach (1835-1917). As a diplomat, he was located in Washington for some time, and became a close friend of Senator

Carl Schurz Carl Christian Schurz (; March 2, 1829 – May 14, 1906) was a German-American revolutionary and an American statesman, journalist, and reformer. He migrated to the United States after the German revolutions of 1848–1849 and became a prominent ...

. Dönhoff discusses in her memoirs her father's involvement in one of the last episodes of the

Indian wars The American Indian Wars, also known as the American Frontier Wars, and the Indian Wars, was a conflict initially fought by European colonial empires, the United States, and briefly the Confederate States of America and Republic of Texas agains ...

, the White River War.

Biography

Marion studied economics at

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

, where

National Socialist Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power, it was frequen ...

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 Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's third-most-populous city (after Zurich and Geneva), with ...

, 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 (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, 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 F ...

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. In January 1945, as

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

troops rolled into the region, Dönhoff fled East Prussia, travelling seven weeks on horseback before reaching

. 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, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

in January 1945, is within the borders of what is now part of Russia (

Kaliningrad oblast Kaliningrad Oblast () is the westernmost federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of the Russian Federation. It is a Enclave and exclave, semi-exclave on the Baltic Sea within the Baltic region of Prussia (region), Prussia, surrounded by Pola ...

), 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 ''

'' 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, author, and political theorist. Schmitt wrote extensively about the effective wielding of political power. An authoritarian conservative theorist, he was noted as a critic of ...

) and went to London to work for ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...

''. Soon afterwards, however, she returned to

, 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 (The Academy) 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, and other ...

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 Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...

. Among many international distinctions, Dönhoff was awarded honorary doctorates by

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

and

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...

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) * ''Before the Storm: Memories of My Youth in Old Prussia'', translated by Jean Steinberg (original title: ''Kindheit in Ostpreußen''), with a foreword by George F. Kennan (1990);

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 list of peace prizes, peace prize awarded annually by the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (), which runs the Frankfurt Book Fair. The award ceremony is held in the Frankfurter Paulskirche, Paulskirche in Frankfurt. T ...

* 1982 Honorary Senator of the

University of Hamburg The University of Hamburg (, also referred to as UHH) is a public university, public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('':de:Allgemeines Vorlesungswesen, ...

* 1990 Member of the

* 1994 Four Freedoms Award for the Freedom of Speech * 1999 Honorary citizen of the city of

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 Architecture is the art and technique of designing and bu ...

, 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 Guryevsky District, Kaliningrad Oblast People from East Prussia Marion Dönhoff Countesses in Germany German women journalists Die Zeit founders Die Zeit editors German newspaper founders 20th-century German journalists 20th-century German women writers 20th-century German newspaper publishers (people) Place of death missing German resistance members Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences