Annemarie von Nathusius

Life

The daughter of an often insolvent aristocratic Prussian Junker, editor of the conservative Kreuzzeitung, Philipp von Nathusius, she was left motherless at age 9. Her grandparents were novelist Marie Nathusius and the publisher Philipp von Nathusius; her great-great-grandmother the poet Philippine Engelhard. In 1896 she married the painter Thomas von Nathusius, a first cousin once removed. She lived with him mainly in Berlin, separated from him in 1900, and divorced him in 1904. When she began her writing career in about 1901, her themes derived from the predicament of women in Junker families, particularly their subordination to abusive men. In about 1902 she met Paul Ilg, an aspiring Swiss writer from an impoverished, lower-class background. Using their combined funds, they left Berlin together. Traveling as man and wife, they stayed on the Riviera, in Northern Italy, and in Munich, their financial situation gradually deteriorating and growing dire. In 1905 Nathusius, probably without Ilg, returned to Berlin. 1916 marked the start of another important relationship, this one a passionate affair with an uneducated young German, Maximilian Kirsch, who had been coerced into joining the French Foreign Legion in Africa and then managed to desert back to Germany. Nathusius wrote short stories and lyrics. First works were published in 1901. Around 1906 Nathusius was introduced to prince Christian Kraft zu Hohenlohe-Öhringen, who became her patron.

In 1910 Der stolze Lumpenkram was published to great success and some controversy. Like several of her other novels, it attacked the lifestyle of Prussian aristocrats and their treatment of women. In 1925, after a trip to Persia she went to Baden-Baden for treatment of her diabetes. On 15 October 1926 she traveled to Berlin where she died two days later.

Works