Guido Georg Friedrich Erdmann Heinrich Adalbert Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck, from 1901 Prince (Fürst) Henckel von Donnersmarck (born 10 August 1830 in Breslau, died 19 December 1916 in Berlin) was a German nobleman, industrial magnate, member of the House of Henckel von Donnersmarck and one of the richest men of his time. He was married in his first marriage to the famed French courtesan Esther Lachmann, known as La Païva, of Russian Jewish origin.
Career
Born in Breslau, Silesia, he was the son of Karl Lazarus, Count Henckel von Donnersmarck (1772–1864) and his wife Julie, née Countess von Bohlen (1800–1866). When his older brother Karl Lazarus Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck died in 1848, his father transferred his numerous mining properties and ironworks in Silesia to Guido, who soon became one of the richest men in Europe.
Henckel also had a sister, Wanda (1826–1907), who in 1843 became the second wife of Ludwig, Prince von Schönaich-Carolath. Friedrich von Holstein, Political Secretary to the German Foreign Office, claimed that the father of one of her sons was either a waiter or a coachman; "One must choose between the two," Holstein wrote.
Henckel lived in Paris from the late 1850s until 1877 with his mistress (later wife), Pauline Thérèse Lachmann, Marquise de Païva, known as La Païva, the most successful of 19th century French courtesans. He engaged in stock market speculations, and Otto von Bismarck sometimes found his shady contacts politically useful. In 1857, Henckel purchased for his mistress the Château de Pontchartrain in Seine-et-Oise.
Like many other Prussian business and political figures, Henckel was a reserve officer, and during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 he was military governor in Metz and erstwhile governor for the to-be-annexed Département de la Lorraine (1871–1872). During the negotiations for the French war indemnity in 1871 he advised Bismarck that France could easily pay it - and indeed, the indemnity payments were completed ahead of schedule in 1873.
After Henckel's return to Germany with his wife in 1877, Bismarck occasionally entrusted him with discreet political or financial transactions. In 1884, for instance, Henckel arranged a loan for Bismarck's old friend, Prince Orlov, at that time the Russian ambassador in Berlin.
Henckel maintained a well-stocked game preserve on his estate at Neudeck in Silesia. When Kaiser Wilhelm II visited Neudeck for a shoot in January 1890, he was able to kill 550 pheasants in a single day.
As an investor in the publishing company, in 1894 Henckel was unwillingly drawn into the dispute between the editor of Kladderadatsch and Geheimrat Friedrich von Holstein of the Foreign Office. In a series of anonymous articles the journal had held up to ridicule Holstein, Alfred von Kiderlen-Wächter and Philipp zu Eulenburg. Kiderlen challenged the editor of Kladderadatsch to a duel and wounded him, but Holstein was not satisfied. He issued a similar challenge to Henckel, who maintained his innocence and declined to fight. Wilhelm II wisely refused to force Henckel to fight Holstein, for, years later, two junior officials of the Foreign Office asserted that they had been the authors of the Kladderadatsch articles.
Wilhelm II granted Henckel the title of Fürst in 1901. The same year he declined appointment as Prussian Minister of Finance upon the death of Johannes Miquel.
In the years preceding World War I Henckel was estimated to be the second-wealthiest German subject, his fortune exceeded only by that of Bertha Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach.
In 1916 he founded the Fürst Donnersmarck Foundation in Berlin with the donation of about of land and four million Goldmarks, an institution instituted to make scientific use of the experiences gained in World War I and to apply these insights in a therapeutic way, and now supporting the rehabilitation, care, and support of the physically and multiply disabled as well as research supporting that care.
Marriages
His first wife was Esther Lachmann (b. Moscow, 7 May 1819 – d. Neudeck, 21 January 1884), a courtesan better known as La Païva. They married in Paris on 28 October 1871. Besides the château of Pontchartrain, Henckel gave her the famous yellow Donnersmarck Diamonds - one pear-shaped and weighing , the other cushion-shaped and . Horace de Viel-Castel wrote that she regularly wore some two million francs' worth of diamonds, pearls and other gems.
It was widely believed, but never proved, that La Païva and her husband were asked to leave France in 1877 on suspicion of espionage. In any case, Henckel brought his wife to live in his castle at Neudeck in Upper Silesia. He had a second estate at Hochdorf in Lower Silesia.