Marianne von Herzfeld

Marianne von Herzfeld was born on 1 March 1893 in Vienna, the daughter of the Jewish jurist Edmund von Herzfeld (1857–1901) and of Ida Herzfeld, née Stern (of the Pappenheim family). Her father died when she was eight years old. The family belonged to Vienna's affluent Jewish bourgeoisie. From the winter semester of 1913/14, Herzfeld studied history at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Vienna, in particular under Alfons Dopsch and Alfred Francis Pribram. In 1917 she received her doctorate with the dissertation 'Zur Orienthandelspolitik Österreichs unter Maria Theresia in der Zeit von 1740–1771' (On Austria's Eastern Trade Policy under Maria Theresa in the period 1740–1771); the work appeared in 1919 in the 'Archiv für österreichische Geschichte' (Archive for Austrian History). The study of the Levant policy of Theresian Austria, the free-port status of Trieste, and the mercantilist strategies against French and English competition brought her to the attention of Ludwig von Mises. In the 1920s she was admitted to Mises's private seminar, which met every two weeks in his office at the Vienna Chamber of Commerce. Mises himself, in his memoir 'Notes and Recollections', credited her with a precise understanding of the interplay of money, foreign trade, and debt. At the same time she worked for the Association of Austrian Banks and Bankers and so remained in exchange with other seminar participants such as Helene Lieser, Stephanie Braun, Ilse Mintz, and Gertrude Lovasy. After the 'Anschluss' of 1938, Herzfeld was arrested by the Austrian National Socialists on a false suspicion and held under harsh conditions. In the prison infirmary, the order for her release arrived, on the condition that she leave the country. A week after her release, her mother died, on 24 June 1938. Herzfeld emigrated to Edinburgh, to her relative the surgeon Gertrude Herzfeld. In Scotland she worked at first under Miss Looker on the establishment of accommodation for women war workers, then as secretary and warden of Darroch House within the Edinburgh hostels for women students. Her true second career came after her retirement in 1959, as a translator. Together with Catherine A. M. Sym and under the patronage of W. H. Bruford, she brought out 'Letters from Goethe' with Edinburgh University Press in 1957, a selection of 595 letters from the more than 13,000 letters Goethe wrote. In 1961 there followed the English translation of Konrad Onasch's 'Icons' with Faber and Faber, revised by David Talbot Rice. She died on 27 July 1976 in her apartment at 8 Montpelier, Edinburgh.