Helene von Nostitz
Helene von Nostitz , née Helene von Beneckendorff and von Hindenburg (born November 18, 1878 in Berlin , † July 17, 1944 in Bassenheim ; also Helene von Nostitz-Wallwitz ) was a German writer and salonnière . She was the niece of the later Reich President Paul von Hindenburg .
Life
Helene von Nostitz grew up in Berlin and Florence . She was the daughter of Major General Conrad von Beneckendorff and von Hindenburg, but spent her youth with her grandfather, the diplomat Georg Herbert zu Munster , mainly in Paris . So she took part in the cultural life of European capitals from an early age. In 1904 she married the Saxon lawyer and diplomat Alfred von Nostitz-Wallwitz . She lived with him first in Dresden , from the 1920s in Berlin. Foreign diplomats and German writers met in her salon on Maaßenstrasse ( Schöneberg ), later on Goethestrasse in Zehlendorf . Her husband was President of the Franco-German Study Committee and could therefore easily initiate contacts. She also regularly visited Paris, the city of her youth; last in 1943.
In October 1933, together with 87 other writers, she signed the pledge of loyal allegiance to Adolf Hitler .
The author was friends with numerous artists and writers, including Auguste Rodin and Hugo von Hofmannsthal . Hofmannsthal put Helene von Nostitz, the “most graceful and most beautiful young woman” he knew in Germany, in the 'Conversation about Goethe's' Tasso' and in 'Difficult' literary monuments. Rainer Maria Rilke was inspired to write two poems by her during their stay on the Baltic Sea in 1913. As an essayist and memoir writer, Helene von Nositz described the “old world” of the nobility and its connection to the “new intellectual aristocracy”, including her artist friends.
Her bust made by Rodin was the focus of an exhibition dedicated to her in Munich in 1999 .
Works
- From old Europe , 1924
- Rodin in Conversations and Letters , 1927
- Berlin , 1929
- Potsdam , 1930
- Hindenburg at home , 1931
- Festliches Dresden , [first edition 1941], ²2001, ISBN 3-7684-4642-5
- Hugo von Hofmannsthal u. Helene von Nostitz. Correspondence . Edited by Oswalt von Nostitz. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1965.
- Rainer Maria Rilke u. Helene von Nostitz. Correspondence . Edited by Oswalt von Nostitz.Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1976.
literature
- Oswalt von Nostitz : Muse and child of the world. The life of Helene von Nostitz , Piper, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-492-03399-7
- A great lady : Essay by Nicolaus Sombart in: Die Zeit , No. 40/1991.
- Gisela Brinker-Gabler, Karola Ludwig, Angela Wöffen: Lexicon of German-speaking women writers 1800–1945. dtv Munich, 1986. ISBN 3-423-03282-0 . P. 231.
Web links
- Literature by and about Helene von Nostitz in the catalog of the German National Library
- Works by Helene von Nostitz in the Gutenberg-DE project
- Rodin and Nostitz with a picture of their bust of Rodin
- Josef Matzerath : Nostitz-Wallwitz, Helene von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , p. 356 ( digitized version ).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Nostitz, Helene von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Benckendorff and Hindenburg, Helene von (maiden name); Nostitz-Wallwitz, Helene von (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German writer and salonier |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 18, 1878 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 17, 1944 |
| Place of death | Bassenheim |