Johanna von Puttkamer
(1824-1894)
BIRTH
April 11, 1824
PLACE
Wiatrołom, Poland
NAME
Johanna Friederike Charlotte Dorothea Eleonore von Puttkamer
DEATH
November 27, 1894
PLACE
Warcino, Poland
FAMILY
HOMES
NICKNAMES
Nanne; Jeanneton
POLITICAL VIEWS
1848 REVOLUTIONS OPPONENT, CONSERVATISM ADVOCATE
RELIGIOUS VIEWS
CHRISTIAN
PROTESTANT PIETIST
MEMBERSHIPS
AWARDS
Johanna von Puttkamer was the wife of Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian statesman who unified Germany; their marriage of nearly fifty years gave Bismarck a devoted and private family life. Bismarck asked her father for her hand in a famous letter written in December 1846, and they married on July 28, 1847. Johanna kept away from politics and dedicated herself to her husband and family. After Bismarck's dismissal in 1890, the couple lived in retirement.
EARLY LIFE
Johanna Friederike Charlotte Dorothea Eleonore von Puttkamer was born on April 11, 1824, at Viartlum in Pomerania, then part of the Kingdom of Prussia and now in Poland. She was the only surviving child of Heinrich von Puttkamer and Luitgarde von Glasenapp, landowners from the Pomeranian gentry. Her parents were devout Pietists, and she grew up in a religious household. She was a talented pianist. Through her Pietist circle of friends she met Otto von Bismarck, then a young landowner, in the mid-1840s.
Bismarck asked her father for her hand in a famous letter written in December 1846, and they married on July 28, 1847. They had three children: Marie, Herbert and Wilhelm.
Johanna kept away from politics and dedicated herself to her husband and family. Through Bismarck's rise to become minister-president of Prussia and chancellor of the German Empire, she managed their households in Berlin and on their estates, and she was known for her loyalty to him.
After Bismarck's dismissal in 1890, the couple lived in retirement. She died at their estate of Varzin in Pomerania on November 27, 1894.
CAREER
DEATH
Johanna von Puttkamer was the wife of Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian statesman who unified Germany; their marriage of nearly fifty years gave Bismarck a devoted and private family life. Johanna kept away from politics and dedicated herself to her husband and family. After Bismarck's dismissal in 1890, the couple lived in retirement. Through Bismarck's rise to become minister-president of Prussia and chancellor of the German Empire, she managed their households in Berlin and on their estates, and she was known for her loyalty to him. Johanna died on 27 November 1894 at the Bismarck manor in Varzin (Warcino), aged 70. Her husband had a chapel built in the Varzin park, where she was buried. The available biographical account does not describe a continuous final medical course. It gives no dependable sequence of treatment and last symptoms from which to reconstruct a more detailed bedside narrative.
POPULAR BIOGRAPHIES
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