Influential German publisher dies

Countess Doenhoff died at Castle Crottorf in Siegerland

By the BBC's Rob Broomby in Berlin

Marion Countess Doenhoff, the woman described as the Grand Dame of German post-war journalism, has died aged 92, leaving behind a newspaper which will forever be associated with her name.

Her nobility came not from her background but from her will and her demeanour

Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt

The liberal weekly Die Zeit, for which she worked as a writer, an editor, and finally a publisher, announced her death on Monday morning, without specifying the cause.

She died at Castle Crottorf in Siegerland.

Noted for her opposition to the Nazis, it is nonetheless her career as a prolific journalist for which she will be remembered.

The Red Countess

Countess Doenhoff was born in 1909 at Castle Friedrichstein, in what was then East Prussia, the daughter of a noble member of the parliament.

Her mother was in royal service.

Her opposition to the Nazis during their rise to power won her the nickname the "Red Countess".

She went abroad and later returned to run the family estates in East Prussia in 1938, and soon became active in the resistance to Hitler.

The countess was interrogated after the failed coup attempt against the Nazi leader, led by Count Claus von Stauffenberg, but was later released.

Wide influence

She joined the liberal Die Zeit in 1946, going on to become Chief Editor and eventually publisher.

And she influenced an entire generation.

She was an outspoken critic of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's foreign policies in the 1950s, and felt more at home with the Social Democrats, although she was not uncritical of the party.

Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt once said: "Her nobility came not from her background but from her will and her demeanour."

An author as well as a political commentator, she won the German publishing industry's Peace Prize in 1971 for promoting reconciliation with Eastern Europe.