Bertha kinsky biography of albert einstein

SUTTNER, BERTHA VON (1843–1914), Austrian peace activist.

Bertha Felice Sophie Kinsky was born 9 June 1843 in Prague into a venerable aristocratic family famed for three centuries of military credentials.

Her seventy-five-year-old father, a third son, died before her birth, and her twenty-five-year-old mother was a commoner. In the rigid society of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, she was considered practically illegitimate, despite her arrival in the palatial family home on the Altstädter Ring.

Raised by a mother who gambled their little money away in the world of casinos and watering places, Bertha, Countess Kinsky, broke free of her environment, used her skills in four languages as well as prodigious music education, and went out to earn her own living.

In 1873, thirty years old and unmarried, she became a governess in the Viennese home of the Baron von Suttner where she met and fell in love with the youngest son, Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner (1850–1902).

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