Tatiana von Metternich-Winneburg
Princess Tatiana von Metternich-Winneburg (born Princess Tatiana Hilarionovna Vassiltchikova (); 1 January 1915 – 26 July 2006) was a Russian aristocrat, philanthropist, artist, and patron of the arts. She published her books and watercolours under the name Tatiana von Metternich. She supported charity, especially the Red Cross and the Order of St. Lazarus, which she served as Grand Bailiff for Germany. She was a founding member of the Rheingau Musik Festival, made parts of Schloss Johannisberg available as concert venues for the festival and served as the president of its Kuratorium until her death. Family Tatiana von Metternich-Winneburg was born in Saint Petersburg, the second daughter of Prince Hilarion Sergueïevitch Vassiltchikov (1881–1969), a member of the Russian Imperial Parliament Fourth Duma, and his wife, the former Princess Lidiya Leonidovna Vyazemskaya (1886–1946). On 6 September 1941 in Berlin-Grunewald, she married Paul Alfons von Metternich-Winneburg, Prince of Metternich-Winneburg, Grandee of Spain, 1941 of Portella and Count of Königswart (1917–1992), son of Clemens von Metternich, Prince of Metternich-Winneburg, and Isabel de Silva y Carvajal, countess of Castillejo. Biography The family fled Russia in 1919, following the Bolshevik October Revolution by joining a group of people who had been evacuated by the British fleet. King George V of the United Kingdom was the cousin of the last Tsar and maternal nephew of widowed Empress Maria Feodorovna. King George V persuaded Prime Minister David Lloyd George to send a ship to Crimea to save his aunt, but the Empress refused to leave unless those who wished to flee the country with her were also rescued. The British sent additional ships to evacuate the entire group, including the Vassiltchikov family. They took refuge, initially in France, where she and her sister Princess Marie Vassiltchikov (1917–1978), called Missie, were educated at the Lycée of St Germain-en-Laye. She studied painting in Munich and later the family rejoined her father in Lithuania where she worked as a secretary at the British Embassy. She moved to England but was unable to get a work permit, so she moved to Germany, where she eventually employed as a translator by the German Foreign Office. Her sister Missie joined her shortly before they settled in Berlin. Due to the tendency of the Nazi party members to bypass the Foreign Ministry staff when formulating policy, as described in the Berlin diaries by Princess Marie, the Foreign Office effectively became a gathering place for civilian members of the anti-Nazi resistance. Her sister kept diaries of her life in the plotters' circle. Princess Marie described these years in her memoirs The Berlin Diaries 1940–1945 of Marie "Missie" Vassiltchikov (1985). Tatiana met her future husband, who was then an ordinary soldier in the German army. He was a half-Austrian and half-Spanish member of the Metternich family. His great-grandfather was Austrian Chancellor Prince Klemens von Metternich, who established a lasting peace at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In recognition of the Chancellor's services, the Emperor of Austria gave him a title and the estate of Johannisberg on