Bertha von Suttner – the first woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize

Berta von suttner

Who was this woman and what made her so extraordinary? Where do we still find her portrait in everyday life today? What was her life like and when did she receive the Nobel Peace Prize?

In Austria, they are known from the former Tausend Schilling bill. Currently, it can be seen on the €2 coins minted in Austria.

Bertha Sophia Felicitas Freifrau von Suttner, saw the light of day in Prague on June 9, 1843. She came from a Bohemian noble family and was a born Countess Kinsky. She achieved world fame as a writer, the first female Nobel Peace Prize winner (1905) , and a pacifist.

But this was not something she was born with from the beginning. On the contrary, her life was marked by many ups and downs. The father married a commoner and died before the daughter was born. The mother gambled away the entire inheritance. The plan to marry the daughter rich did not work out.

At thirty, Bertha was still unmarried and took a job as a governess with the Suttner family in Vienna. There she taught music and language to the four daughters and fell in love with the youngest son of the family, the um seven years younger, Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner. Thereupon she was dismissed.

 

She went to Paris and took a job as private secretary to the wealthy industrialist Alfred Nobel (Swedish inventor, chemist and namesake of the Nobel Prize).

But the great love for Arthur remained. The couple married secretly in Vienna, he was then disinherited and they went to Georgia together. There she began to write out of a need for money.

 

After almost ten years, the two returned to Vienna; Bertha was by now a recognized writer. The contact with Alfred Nobel remained all these years, he was her great sponsor.

In 1889, her novel “Lay Down Your Arms” was publishedand made her world famous.

 

She traveled the world as a peace ambassador for the next several decades. In 1905, she was the first woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her tireless efforts against war and violence.

 

On June 21, 1914, exactly one week before the shooting in Sarajevo, she succumbed to cancer. Fortunately, she did not live to see the outbreak of the First World War, of which she had repeatedly warned.

 

Time Travel Tip: In the 4th district in the Bertha von Suttner-Hof, a memorial to Bertha von Suttner was erected. It is a pedestal with a group of figures by the sculptor Siegfried Charoux

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Share this post

More contributions

Pest in wien
Plague in Vienna

Plague in Vienna

The term “plague” was originally used to describe any disease that was epidemic and deadly in character. Therefore, it is very difficult, in early years,

read more "

Information on data protection
We use technologies such as cookies, LocalStorage, etc. to customize your browsing experience, to personalize content and ads, to provide social media features, and to analyze traffic to our website. We also share information about how our site is used with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Our partners may combine this information with other data that you have provided to them or that you have collected as part of using the Services (incl. US providers). You can find more information about the use of your data in our data protection declaration.

data protection
This website uses cookies so that we can offer you the best possible user experience. You can find more information about the use of your data in our data protection declaration.

Strictly Necessary Cookies
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

Marketing & Statistics
This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site and the most popular pages. Leave this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.

Google Tag Manager
This is a tag management system. Using the Google Tag Manager, tags can be integrated centrally via a user interface. Tags are small pieces of code that represent activitiescan track. Script codes from other tools are integrated via the Google Tag Manager. The Tag Manager makes it possible to control when a specific tag is triggered.