Bertha von Suttner

Baroness Bertha von Suttner (née Countess Kinsky; 1843 – 1914) was a towering figure in the international peace movement. A member of an aristocratic Austrian military family, she worked briefly as secretary to Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel in Paris, developing a lifelong correspondence that directly inspired him to include a Peace Prize in his will.

In 1889, Suttner published *Die Waffen nieder!* (*Lay Down Your Arms!*), an extraordinarily realistic anti-war novel depicting the brutality of European battlefields from a woman's perspective. The novel became an international sensation, translated into dozens of languages. Suttner founded the Austrian Peace Society, co-founded the German Peace Society, and edited the journal of the permanent international peace bureau. In 1905, she became the first woman awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, warning prophetically of an impending European industrial slaughter weeks before her death on the eve of World War I.