Mary von Waldersee

On 14 April 1874, she married Count Alfred von Waldersee, a German military officer. She was particularly close to her first husband's niece, Augusta Victoria, who became the German Empress, and this close relationship also came to include Wilhelm II, who was a frequent guest of the Waldersees in Berlin.[7] The relationship may have developed into a physical one, according to Alson J. Smith in A View of the Spree, after the Waldersees moved to Berlin.[8] There, she soon became widely known through her political salon and her interest in local charities.

While she resided in Berlin, she was equally zealous in good works. For some years, she worked with the antisemitic Reverend Adolf Stoecker, director of the Berlin City Mission.[9] Though she may not have been aware of Stoecker's antisemitism, she did help him obtain a court chaplaincy in 1874, which he filled until 1890.[10] She was for years the friend of German Emperor Frederick III and of Empress Victoria, until the women fell out over the direction in which Germany should move. Empress Victoria envisioned an English-style constitutional monarchy, while Countess von Waldersee wanted "...the crown to rest on the head of a pious and socially concerned Christian ruler, but one who was also a politically conservative Pan-German nationalist in the Prussian rather than the English tradition."[11]

She continued a pious life in Altona and Hannover, where her husband was appointed to, and supported the German branch of YMCA, founded by her friend Friedrich von Schlümbach, as well as other charitable organizations, like the Hamburg City Mission.

Her second husband died on 5 March 1904.[6] The Countess of Waldersee died at her home in Hanover on 4 July 1914.[12] After her death, she left two-fifths of her approximately $750,000 estate to her husband's niece, Blanche, Baroness von Palm, and one-fifth to three of his nephews, Col. Count George von Waldersee, Capt. Count Franz von Waldersee, and Maj. Count Gustav von Waldersee.[13]