Bertha von Suttner

peace (the peace movement)

She became the best-known voice of the European peace movement of her day.

💡 Did you know? Mockers called her "Peace Bertha": she carried on undeterred, travelling to peace congresses across Europe.

Lay Down Your Arms!

The story of a woman who loses everything to the wars of her era: translated into more than a dozen languages.

💡 Did you know? Leo Tolstoy compared the novel's impact to what "Uncle Tom's Cabin" had done against slavery.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate

After Marie Curie she was only the second woman to receive any Nobel Prize at all.

💡 Did you know? In 1905 she received the very prize she herself is said to have moved Alfred Nobel to create.

Alfred Nobel

She had answered a newspaper advertisement in Paris; the job lasted only a few weeks.

💡 Did you know? Those few weeks in Paris grew into a correspondence that lasted until Nobel's death in 1896.

to endow the Nobel Peace Prize

In 1895 the inventor of dynamite added a peace prize to his will; her persistent championing is credited as the decisive nudge.

💡 Did you know? Nobel once wrote to her that his dynamite factories might end war sooner than her congresses: yet he endowed the peace prize all the same.

in Prague (as Countess Kinsky)

She came from old Bohemian nobility, but without money; her father died before she was born.

💡 Did you know? At thirty the countess took work as a governess: which is how she met her future husband in the Suttner household.

to the Caucasus (Georgia)

Arthur's family opposed his marriage to the older, penniless governess: so the couple married in secret in 1876.

💡 Did you know? For nine years the Suttners scraped by in Georgia on language lessons and writing before the family took them back.

Austrian Peace Society

The Austrian Peace Society made her the chief organiser of the peace movement in the Habsburg monarchy.

💡 Did you know? In 1899 Suttner attended the first Hague Peace Conference as the only woman present.

the 2-euro coin

Austria has minted her portrait on its 2-euro coin since 2002: before that she graced the 1,000-schilling banknote.

💡 Did you know? Europe's most famous pacifist still passes through millions of wallets every day.

June 1914, shortly before the First World War

She died of cancer in Vienna on 21 June 1914: one week before the assassination in Sarajevo.

💡 Did you know? The great war she had warned against all her life was one she never had to witness.

Bertha von Suttner

Bertha von Suttner (1843 to 1914) was an Austrian pacifist and writer: author of "Lay Down Your Arms!" and, in 1905, the first female Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

💡 Did you know? Her portrait still passes through millions of wallets today: on Austria's 2-euro coin.

1843

Born: 9 June 1843 in Prague