Kate Stresemann

Kate Stresemann (nee Kleefeld) (b. 15 July 1883 in Berlin-Lankwitz; d. 23 July 1970 in New York City) was the daughter of a prominent Berlin industrialist, Adolf Kleefeld. Both of her parents were Jewish, but were Protestant by religion. In 1903 she married Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929), who later became Chancellor and Foreign Minister of the Weimar Republic, and bore him two sons, Wolfgang (1904-1998) and Hans-Joachim (1908-1999).

She was a prominent figure of society in the 1920s. As the wife of the foreign minister she made her salon at Tauentzienstrase 12a a meeting place of diplomats.

Her brother, Kurt von Kleefeld, was the last person in Germany to be ennobled, when he was raised to the hereditary nobility of the Principality of Lippe by Leopold IV, Prince of Lippe "in recognition of his loyal service" on 12 November 1918, the same day as the Prince's abdication.

Kleefeld is mentioned in one of the fictitious quotes the November 8, 1926 issue of TIME Magazine satirically attributed to quite a number of prominent people under the headline: Had they been interviewed, some people who figured in last week's news might have related certain of their doings as follows: Gustav Stresemann, Foreign Minister of Germany: "A story went the rounds of Berlin last week that my ability to entertain lavishly on a salary of $6,400 a year is due to the kindly furtherance of my affairs by the multimillionaire Dr. von Kleefeld, my bachelor brother-in-law."

In August 1929, when Kate Stresemann hosted the program for spouses at the 25th World Advertising Congress in Berlin, TIME Magazine described her as "no hausfrau, but a young, elegant, cosmopolite, English speaking Jewess, a woman equipped with the conversation of the polite world, equal to parlor or nightclub."

In the autumn of 1939 she fled Nazi Germany with her son Wolfgang and his family and settled in the United States, where her son Hans-Joachim had already found refuge.