The Countess and the Nazis : An American Family's Private War

Muriel White was a scion of several “first families” of the U.S. Born into great wealth at the height of the Gilded Age, her mother was so famously beautiful that Edith Wharton and Henry James wrote about it. Muriel’s father, who signed the Versailles Peace Treaty on behalf of the U.S., was among the most brilliant and respected diplomats of his day and their daughter was reared at the courts of Europe among the social elite of the era.

Muriel, who spoke six languages fluently, ultimately married a Prussian count whose family held extensive estates and a hereditary seat in the Prussian House of Lords. She gave birth to three children, but the gathering clouds of World War II strained her relationship with her husband. He seemed to care only about protecting his family’s extensive estates, while Muriel plainly saw what Germany’s future was becoming. As she mentored her husband’s cousin, the future Queen Geraldine of Albania, through courtship, marriage, and the birth of the crown prince, Muriel witnessed firsthand the Italian Fascist invasion of Albania in 1939 and the royal family’s narrow escape from capture.

When war descended on Europe and her marriage failed, Muriel sent her children to safety abroad. Cut off from her funds in the United States, she and her husband divorced; he allowed her to remain in their palace only as an unpaid housekeeper, even though her fortune had restored the estate. Her U.S. passport was confiscated and she was virtually a prisoner. Nevertheless, she resisted the Nazis (in several verified incidents) and secured funding to save a Jewish family before she was forced to make the ultimate sacrifice rather than reveal the location of her sons to the Nazis.