Biography
The father was a member of the Prussian manor house and a member of the Reichstag. In 1924, Marion Dönhoff survived a serious accident when, as a passenger in a car with several other children, she fell into the Pregel on the way back from a trip to the Baltic Sea resort of Cranz. She was the last one to free herself from the car. Her cousin Huberta Kanitz and Franz Coudenhove were found dead hours later. The family sent her to a girls' boarding school in Berlin, against whose strict rules the girl rebelled. After two years she was allowed to transfer to a high school in Potsdam, where she lived with a family friend and was the only girl in a boys' class to pass her Abitur in 1929. She then attended a household school in Samaden near St. Moritz, made a tour of the USA and from December 1930 spent a long time with her brother Christoph in Africa near Nairobi.
From 1932 Dönhoff studied economics in Frankfurt/M. After the National Socialist seizure of power at the beginning of 1933, Dönhoff publicly rejected the National Socialists, for example by distributing leaflets with oppositional content. During this time she was known as the "Red Countess" because she sympathized with the left. Countess Dönhoff emigrated to Basel to avoid persecution. In 1935, Dönhoff received his doctorate on a topic about family property. She then went on longer trips, including to Africa. After her return, she worked in the administration of the family estate from 1937, which she took over when the war broke out. Between 1940 and 1945 she was active as a resistance fighter under the guise of a noblewoman loyal to the regime. As part of the investigation into the failed assassination attempt on Hitler by Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg on July 20, 1944, Dönhoff was also suspected of complicity, but she was quickly released.
When the Soviet army invaded, she fled from Friedrichstein Castle, which was set on fire and completely destroyed by the Red Army. In the immediate post-war period, two statements about National Socialism written by Dönhoff for the British occupying power went unnoticed. As an observer at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, she criticized the victorious powers' one-sided image of Germany, in which the German resistance movement remained unnoticed. From 1946, Dönhoff worked for the weekly newspaper "DIE ZEIT", whose editorial team had previously become aware of her two statements on National Socialism. Many of her journalistic contributions are based on her experiences in resistance, international cooperation and the loss of home and are characterized by a critical tone. In 1955, Dönhoff became head of the politics department and deputy editor-in-chief of ZEIT. As a journalist, Dönhoff criticized Adenauer's policies and campaigned for the reunification of Germany.
When construction of the Wall began in August 1961, she came to East Berlin and commented negatively on the progressive separation of the two German states. The following year her book "Names that no one knows anymore: East Prussia, people and history" was published, in which she tells about her escape in 1945. With her participation in the publication "Journey to a Faraway Land - Economics and Politics in the GDR" in 1964, the Countess became involved in an active Eastern policy. Four years later she became editor-in-chief of ZEIT. In 1970 she received an invitation from Willy Brandt to accompany the then Chancellor to the signing of the Warsaw Treaty. The journalist thus received recognition for her political commitment. A year later she was honored with the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for her work towards international reconciliation. Dönhoff became editor of ZEIT in 1972, and she also published her own books.
In 1976 her title "People who know what it's about" was published, in which she examined the political effects of people. She felt committed to the common good and founded the "Marhoff" association in Hamburg in 1981, whose task was to take care of the integration of released prisoners. In "American Baths of Change" (1983) she commented on 40 years of US foreign and domestic policy. Historical observations can be found in her 1987 work "Prussia - Moderation and Intemperance". In 1988, the "Marion Dnhoff Foundation" was founded, which had her book fees and prize money as its financial basis and was the sole heir in her will. The book "Childhood in East Prussia", published in 1988, was an autobiographical work about his own childhood and youth. During this time, Dönhoff received the Heinrich Heine Prize from the city of Düsseldorf. In her acceptance speech she condemned the mutual killing in the Israeli-occupied areas of Palestine This caused the displeasure of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.
In the fall of 1992, Dönhoff formulated a manifesto entitled "Because the country must change." The impetus for this was the fundamental change in values in society that, in her view, no longer wanted to know anything about virtues such as fulfillment of duty and a sense of responsibility and was inclined towards self-realization, self-interest and hedonism. Among the seven co-authors of this work were Wilhelm Nölling, Wolfgang Thierse and Edzard Reuter as well as Helmut Schmidt. A year later, the second manifesto "Because the country needs reconciliation" followed, which dealt with the GDR's past and was concerned with reconciliation. In the title "For the Sake of Honor" (1994), Dönhoff wrote about the historical events leading up to Stauffenberg's attempted assassination of Hitler. In 1996 she was awarded the "Erich Kästner Prize" from the Presseclub Dresden e.V. In the same year, Alice Schwarzer's biography of the countess was published.
In 1999, the journalist was awarded the Bruno Kreisky Prize and the Hermann Sinsheimer Prize. In 1999 she was made an honorary citizen of the city of Hamburg. As an author, she has written more than twenty books. The only luxury she afforded herself were sports cars, which she drove until old age. Marion Countess Dönhoff died at the age of 92 on March 11, 2002 at Crottorf Castle near Friesenhagen in the northern district of Altenkirchen, Rhineland-Palatinate. In 2003, the "Marion Dönhoff Foundation" took part in the founding of the Marion Dönhoff Prize, which honors personalities who have committed themselves to international understanding and good relations between Germany and Eastern Europe.
