The Countess and the Nazis: An American Family’s Private War

In this somewhat drily narrated chronicle, historian Hutto (A Poisoned Life) brings to light the fascinating story of Muriel White (1880–1943). A scion of several of America’s Gilded Age families, Muriel grew up in the heart of high society. After being thwarted in three previous engagements by her domineering mother, in 1909 Muriel entered into a rocky marriage with a Prussian count; he quickly drained her inheritance, and they eventually divorced in the late 1930s. With the rise of the Nazi party, Muriel was at first loyal to the German cause along with her German husband; but her views had shifted by 1937, when during a Berlin dinner party, in response to a discussion over how Jews could occasionally be made “honorary Germans,” she needled the other guests by asking “Can you tell me how I can become an honorary Jew?” In 1939, Muriel sent her grown children to safety abroad but was forced to remain at the family’s Polish estate, her passport confiscated by the Nazis. She took part in resistance activity, including helping acquaintances flee Nazi-occupied territory, among them her ex-husband. Confronted by the Gestapo, Muriel jumped to her death from one of her castle’s towers—likely to avoid torture. Hutto’s narrative is laden with social connections, lineages, and digressions on sons-in-law and cousins. The result is an exhilarating account of principled antifascism buried in a dense upper-crust social history. (Feb.)