Käte Stresemann

Who is Käte Stresemann?

Kate Stresemann was the daughter of a prominent Berlin industrialist, Adolf Kleefeld. Both of her parents were Jewish, but were Protestant by religion. In 1903 she married Gustav Stresemann, who later became Chancellor and Foreign Minister of the Weimar Republic, and bore him two sons, Wolfgang and Joachim.

She was a prominent figure of society in the 1920s. As the wife of the foreign minister she made her salon at Tauentzienstraße 12a a meeting place of diplomats.

Her brother, Kurt von Kleefeld, was the last person in Germany to be ennobled, when he was raised to the hereditary nobility of the Principality of Lippe by Leopold IV, Prince of Lippe "in recognition of his loyal service" on 12 November 1918, the same day as the Prince's abdication.

TIME Magazine quoted Gustav Stresemann in its November 8, 1926 issue as follows: "A story went the rounds of Berlin last week that my ability to entertain lavishly on a salary of $6,400 a year is due to the kindly furtherance of my affairs by the multimillionaire Dr. [Kurt] von Kleefeld [1881-1934], my bachelor brother-in-law."