Permanent series: Women of German History - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1991 - 200 Pfennig

When Bertha Kinsky was born in Prague on June 9, 1843, her father, Imperial Field Marshal's Lieutenant and Chamberlain, was already dead. Since her mother, the daughter of a Captain, was not admitted to the narrow circle of the old Austrian nobility, she did not find the one she wanted in Vienna Recognition in the nobility circles. Nevertheless, the mother, despite her limited fortune, tried to educate her child in the way a woman, disappointed in life, is educating a beautiful girl: one day to make a splendid match. They visited the elegant baths of Wiesbaden, where the daughter was looking for the dreamed future and the mother at the casino tried to improve her financial situation. Both failed. Bertha decided, at the age of 30, to take up a position as a teacher and companion and took over this task with the adolescent daughters of the Viennese industrialist Baron von Suttner. She also found love there with a younger son of the family, Arthur Gundaccar, and she secretly became engaged. On June 12, 1676, they were secretly married in Vienna. In order to earn a living, they gave lessons, and eventually both began to write. During a stay in the winter of 1886/87 in Paris, where Bertha von Suttner also met Alfred Nobel, she heard about the existence of an International Peace Society in London. Her quest to establish an International Arbitration Court to mediate in supranational disputes and prevent wars greatly impressed her, she became a tireless fighter against the war, and three years later her novel The Weapons Down appeared, which became a sensational success. The book appeared in Germany until 1907 in 37 editions. With this Bertha started from Suttner's active fight for a worldwide peace order to outlaw warlike conflicts. The "Austrian Society of Friends of Peace," founded in 1891, took part in the peace congresses that took place in 1889 in the same year; she appeared as a speaker against the ever-increasing armor. Alfred Nobel, with whom she has maintained a friendly relationship since then, honored Bertha von Suttner's commitment by the foundation of the Nobel Peace Prize. In the journal "Die Waffen nieder", which was co-founded in 1892, she created another journalistic forum for the dissemination of her peace ideas. In May 1903 she was appointed vice president of the International Peace Bureau in Bern. In 1905, they rewarded their fight for the ostracism of the war by awarding the Nobel Peace Prize. Fate graciously meant it when she died on June 21, 1914. Thus she was spared the world war with horrors and horrors of unprecedented proportions. (Text: Eberhard Flessing, Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Archive of Social Democracy, Bonn)