Youth Marie – nicknamed "Mimi" – was born in
Rome as daughter of
Ludwig August von Buch,
Prussian ambassador to the
Holy See. Her father died in 1845, and her mother, Marie
von Nimptsch (1820–1897), married Prince
Hermann Anton von Hatzfeldt zu Trachenberg (1808–1874) in 1847. By this marriage, the economic situation of mother and daughter, which until then had not been comfortable, improved due to the wealth of the Hatzfeldt family. Marie was trained as a pianist from her early youth; taught by such virtuosos as
Carl Tausig, she developed a remarkable musical talent. Her acquaintance with
Franz Liszt, who also showed interest in the advancement of her musical abilities, dates from this period.
Marriages , von Schleinitz's first husband; portrait by
Adolph Menzel, 1865 In 1865 von Schleinitz married
Baron Alexander von Schleinitz (1807–1885), then Prussian minister of the royal household. Her husband was thirty-five years older than her. In 1879 they were made
Count and Countess by emperor
William I, German Emperor. They had no children. Her first husband died in 1885. In 1886 von Schleinitz married Count
Anton von Wolkenstein-Trostburg (1832–1913), Austrian ambassador first in Berlin, then in
Saint Petersburg, and finally (from 1894) in Paris. Henceforth, she called herself "Countess Schleinitz-Wolkenstein". In summertime, they retired to the country estate of the Wolkenstein family, the castle
Ivano in the south of the
County of Tyrol. After her second husband's retirement in 1904, they resettled in Berlin, where both died shortly before the breakout of
World War I.
Richard Wagner with Count and Countess Wolkenstein at the Bayreuth Festival, 1880s at Villa
Wahnfried with his closest friends, about 1880; painting by
Georg Papperitz. On the right, sitting, is von Schleinitz. Marie von Schleinitz became a passionate fan of
Richard Wagner (1813–1883) beginning from the early 1860s, when she made his acquaintance of at a concert in
Breslau. As the wife of the Prussian minister of the royal household, von Schleinitz used her social influence that was connected with her new rank to support and publicise Wagner's career among the leading circles of Prussian society. She supported him at the Prussian court; Emperor William I, granted him the opening of the
Bayreuth Festival in 1876. von Schleinitz helped found the "Bayreuther Patronatsverein" (Bayreuth Patronage Club) in 1870, whose purpose was financing the diverse projects of Wagner, among them the building of the
Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which was completed in 1876. Marie von Schleinitz and Wagner were close personal friends from their first meeting, and exchanged many letters. After Wagner's remarriage in 1870, von Schleinitz became an intimate friend of Wagner's second wife,
Cosima Wagner, whose daughter Daniela, later Mrs.
Henry Thode, she introduced into Berlin society in the 1880s. Wagner died in 1883.
Literary salon , 1875.From left to right:
Hermann von Helmholtz,
Heinrich von Angeli, von Schleinitz,
Anna von Helmholtz, count
Götz von Seckendorff, countess Hedwig von Brühl,
crown princess Victoria, count Wilhelm Pourtalès,
crown prince Friedrich,
Alexander von Schleinitz,
Anton von Werner,
prince Hermann of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. From the beginning of her marriage, von Schleinitz hosted a
literary salon at the ministerial residence of her husband at No. 77
Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin. She placed particular emphasis on the cultural and intellectual orientation of her salon, which contributed to her later fame as the only aristocratic woman in Berlin involved in modeling the cultural shape of the capital of the recently created
German Empire. She mixed aristocratic and bourgeois elements in her salon, which was a novelty in the then still quite feudal society of Prussia. Until then, nobles, officers, and civil officials had scarcely come into contact with intellectuals, scholars, and businessmen. In consequence of her second marriage to Wolkenstein, von Schleinitz gave up her salon in Berlin and accompanied her new husband on his several diplomatic missions. After his retirement from service in 1904, she reopened her house in Berlin, where she received personal friends and members of the political and cultural life of the Reich until her death in 1912.
Bismarck Besides her friendship to Wagner, von Schleinitz was known for her rivalry with
Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898). The Prussian prime minister and later
Chancellor of Germany, who maintained a conservative, authoritarian rule over Prussia and Germany, was unsympathetic to von Schleinitz due to her liberal mentality. Bismarck was an enemy of her husband, who had been one of the protagonists of the so-called "new era" from 1858 to 1862, when
William I and his wife
Augusta followed a moderate strategy of modernization and liberalization of the Prussian state. Alexander von Schleinitz was a favorite of the liberal-minded queen Augusta. Nevertheless, von Schleinitz made several unsuccessful attempts to reconcile Bismarck with her husband and herself. == Historical role ==