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Historical records matching Pannonica de Koenigswarter
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About Pannonica de Koenigswarter
Kathleen Annie Pannonica Rothschild was born in December 1913, in London, the youngest daughter of Charles Rothschild and his wife, Hungarian baroness Rozsika Edle von Wertheimstein, daughter of Baron Alfred von Wertheimstein of Transylvania. She was born into a branch of the wealthiest family in the world at the time. Her paternal grandfather was Nathan Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild. She grew up in Tring Park Mansion as well as Waddesdon Manor, among other family houses. The name "Pannonica" (shortened to "Nica" as a nickname) derives from Eastern Europe's Pannonian plain. Her friend Thelonious Monk reported that she was named after a species of butterfly her father had discovered, although her great-niece has found that the source of the name is a rare kind of moth, Eublemma pannonica. She was a niece of Walter Rothschild, the 2nd Baron Rothschild, and her brother Victor Rothschild became the 3rd Baron Rothschild. (According to thepeerage.com, she was granted the rank of the daughter of a baron on 15 March 1938.) Her elder sister Dame Miriam Rothschild was a distinguished scientist and zoologist.
In 1935 she married French diplomat Baron Jules de Koenigswarter, later a Free French hero. They lived together in a château in north-west France. She worked for Charles de Gaulle during World War II. The couple separated in 1951 and she moved to New York City, permanently renting a suite at 995 Fifth Avenue, and leaving behind five children. As a result of their separation, Koenigswarter was disinherited by her family, the Rothschilds. The couple eventually divorced in 1956. In 1958, she purchased a house with a Manhattan skyline view, originally built for film director Josef von Sternberg, at 63 Kingswood Road in Weehawken, New Jersey. Koenigswarter died in 1988, aged 74. By her first husband, she had five children, two grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.
when did Hannah first become interested in her great-aunt? In enunciated BBC English she says, ‘I was 11 when I learned from whispers that my great-aunt Nica had escaped marriage to a glamorous French diplomat to live with Thelonious Monk, a penurious African-American jazz genius in New York. Nica had exchanged a comfortable married life to a handsome, though controlling, diplomat and five children for a precarious existence hanging around jazz bars, acting as patroness and chauffeur to Thelonious Monk and his friends.’
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Nica was born in 1913, the youngest daughter of Charles Rothschild and his wife, Hungarian Baroness Rozsika Edle von Wertheimstein and grew up at Tring, now Waddesdon Manor, which was modelled on a French chateau. Although Thelonious thought Nica was named Pannonica after a butterfly, her insect-collecting father had actually named her after a little white and yellow moth.
His early death, by suicide, traumatised the family, but Nica pleased her family by rather conventionally marrying a dashing French diplomat, Baron Jules de Koenigswarter. Though not as rich as the Rothschilds, Jules was Jewish, widowed and reliable. For years, the couple seemed happy and well suited, and after bearing five children, Nica seemed to have transformed into a worthy Rothschild matriarch. As mistress of Jules’s chateau in the French countryside, she presided over everyday life, choosing daily menus, hiring and firing staff, and acting as hostess to distinguished guests and large diplomatic dinner parties.
But all that changed with the Second World War, when the family had to flee for their lives as the Nazis swarmed across France. Nica single-handedly shepherded her five children and staff to safety as Jules had already left to fight. Jules and Nica both joined the French Resistance, which raised her confidence in her own ability and gave her a taste for a freer life.
Life as chatelaine of Jules’s country home, after all, had not been very different from her restricted, spoilt and pampered childhood at Tring. Although she loved Jules, their temperaments were very different. He needed a planned, structured day and tended to be controlling, while she preferred to leave things to chance. They quarrelled about her lack of punctuality.
After the war, the cracks in their marriage widened further. In 1948, Nica heard Thelonious Monk’s jazz tune Round Midnight while on a trip to New York. Spellbound, she played it 20 times in a row, missed her plane and spent the next four years searching for Thelonious until she found him in Paris. She left her husband and young family, and remained devoted to Thelonious for the next 28 years.
The Wild Rothschild, The Lady
- Name Jules Adolphe De Koenigswarter
- Event Type Marriage
- Event Date 15 Oct 1935
- Event Place Manhattan, New York, New York, United States
- Gender Male
- Age 31
- Marital Status Widowed
- Race White
- Birth Year (Estimated) 1904
- Birthplace Paris, France
- Father's Name Louis
- Mother's Name Jeanne Kauffmann
- Spouse's Name Kathleen Annie Pannonica Rothschild
- Spouse's Gender Female
- Spouse's Age 21
- Spouse's Marital Status Single
- Spouse's Race White
- Spouse's Birth Year (Estimated) 1914
- Spouse's Birthplace London, England
- Spouse's Father's Name Charles
- Spouse's Mother's Name Rozseka Wertheimstein
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Pannonica de Koenigswarter's Timeline
| 1913 |
December 10, 1913
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Kensington, London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom
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| 1936 |
July 20, 1936
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| 1946 |
April 1, 1946
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| 1948 |
November 15, 1948
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| 1950 |
January 10, 1950
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| 1988 |
November 30, 1988
Age 74
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