Maria-Anna von Nostitz-Rieneck

Marianne Nostitz (third from right) with other aristocrats at a charity performance in 1903

Maria-Anna (Marianne) Franziska Countess von Nostitz-Rieneck (born July 9, 1882 in Horka an der Iser , Bohemia, † May 6, 1952 in Graz ), married Baroness von Ringhoffer , was a Catholic philanthropist who worked during the First World War and in the interwar period developed a lively charitable activity in Prague and played a notable role in the social and cultural area.

biography

The daughter of Count Carl-Erwein von Nostitz-Rieneck (1850–1911), who was one of the leading representatives of the aristocracy in Bohemia as an Imperial and Royal Chamberlain and Privy Councilor and hereditary member of the manor house of the Austrian Imperial Council, and Marie, née. Countess von Nostitz from the Rokitnitz family , married Baron Alfred von Ringhoffer (1880–1938), the second-born son of the industrialist Franz von Ringhoffer III , on July 31, 1904 at Schloss Plan . and Franziska, geb. Freiin Klein von Wisenberg. This at the time unusual connection between a sex of the high aristocracy and a newly ennobled entrepreneurial family initially caused a scandal in the court society of the Habsburg monarchy, but made it possible for the devout bride with the best contacts to the church hierarchy to undertake extensive humanitarian engagement. In the wealth of her husband's family, she saw a special obligation to the poor and needy. After the smashing of Czechoslovakia and the Nazi occupation, she stood up for Czech and Jewish citizens who suffered oppression and persecution.

Maria-Anna, gen. Marianne, Grfn. Von Nostitz-Rieneck, married Frfr. von Ringhoffer had five daughters: Maria, Anna (married Froschmair von Scheibenhof ), Leopoldine ("Leo") from Felix, Selina (married Countess von Schönborn ) and Dr. phil. Christiane (married von Doderer ). After the collapse of Nazi rule in May 1945, she was taken from her apartment in Prague-Bubenec by the Revolutionary Guards and taken to the Device camp with around 5000 Germans from Prague and later to the Strahov stadium under inhumane conditions . In 1948 she was able to leave Czechoslovakia with her daughter Leo, who was held in the notorious Pankrác prison for more than seven months . She spent the last years of her life in Graz, where she was buried in the crypt of the Barons von Daublebsky after her death in 1952.