Kte Stresemann

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Family

German noted spouse, the wife of Chancellor, Foreign Minister and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Gustav Stresemann. Widely admired for her elegance and intelligence, she was a prominent figure of society in the 1920s. As the wife of the foreign minister she made her salon at Tauentzienstraße 12a a meeting place of diplomats. She was the daughter of a prominent Berlin industrialist, Adolf (also known as Arthur, born Aaron) Kleefeld. Both of her parents were born Jewish, but they raised their children as Lutherans. 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). 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" to his noble lord, Christian Kraft of Hohenlohe-Ohringen, Duke of Ujest, on request by the latter, on 12 November 1918, the same day as the Prince's abdication. 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. She lived in New York City until her death on 23 July 1970, aged 87, in Berlin, while on a visit to Germany. Link to Wikipedia biography