Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg, Sophie Josepha Ernestine Countess of

Socialist

Born: 10.08.1805 in Trachenberg (Silesia)

died: 25.01.1881 in Wiesbaden

As the third daughter of Franz Ludwig Prince von Hatzfeldt zu Trachenberg and his wife Friderike, Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg married her cousin, Edmund Count von Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg, at the age of 16 for reasons of family honor. As the marriage was unhappy, Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg left her husband in 1846 and broke away from her family. She asked the banker's son Felix Alexander Oppenheim for legal advice and support in asserting her rights. Through him, Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg met the 21-year-old student from a Jewish family, Ferdinand Lassalle, in 1846.

Lassalle, two days younger than her eldest son, became her confidant. To protect her from creditors, he moved into her house in Düsseldorf. Lassalle interrupted his studies to fight through the most spectacular divorce proceedings of the 19th century with her in over 30 courts. It took almost a decade for them to win, during which time they formed a close relationship. Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg now also identified with Lassalle's political views, opened her home to his fellow supporters and was herself part of the democratic-revolutionary movement of 1848/49. The last case file was closed on August 11, 1854: She lived with Lassalle for two more years before Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg moved to Berlin, but remained closely associated with him.

After his death in a duel in 1864, Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg saw it as her task to continue and preserve Lassalle's work in his spirit. In 1867, she founded the "Lassallescher Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein" (Lassalle's General German Workers' Association), which split off from the ADAV. Just two years later, it reunited with the ADAV. Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg was now considered an outsider, withdrew from politics and reconciled with her family.

At the end of her life, she lived with her son, Count Paul von Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg, at Sommerberg Castle near Frauenstein and in Wiesbaden. Her grave is in the cemetery in Frauenstein.