Tuesday, Mar 04, 2025 7:00 PM

Location:
The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library
441 John Lewis Freedom Parkway, NE
Atlanta, Georgia 30307

From American heiress to Nazi resistance fighter, Muriel White's extraordinary journey reveals how one woman's privilege became her weapon against tyranny.

The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and A Cappella Books welcome author Rick Hutto to discuss his new book, "The Countess and the Nazis: An American Family's Private War."

This event is free and open to the public. Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the venue.

About the Book

Muriel White was a scion of several "first families" of the U.S. Born into great wealth at the height of the Gilded Age, her mother was so famously beautiful that Edith Wharton and Henry James wrote about it. Muriel's father, who signed the Versailles Peace Treaty on behalf of the U.S., was among the most brilliant and respected diplomats of his day and their daughter was reared at the courts of Europe among the social elite of the era.

Muriel, who spoke six languages fluently, ultimately married a Prussian count whose family held extensive estates and a hereditary seat in the Prussian House of Lords. She gave birth to three children, but the gathering clouds of World War II strained her relationship with her husband. He seemed to care only about protecting his family's extensive estates, while Muriel plainly saw what Germany's future was becoming. As she mentored her husband's cousin, the future Queen Geraldine of Albania, through courtship, marriage, and the birth of the crown prince, Muriel witnessed firsthand the Italian Fascist invasion of Albania in 1939 and the royal family's narrow escape from capture.

As war descended on Europe and her marriage failed, Muriel sent her children to safety abroad. Cut off from her funds in the United States, she and her husband divorced; he allowed her to remain in their palace only as an unpaid housekeeper, even though her fortune had restored the estate. Her U.S. passport was confiscated, and she was virtually a prisoner. Nevertheless, she resisted the Nazis (in several verified incidents) and secured funding to save a Jewish family before she was forced to make the ultimate sacrifice rather than reveal the location of her sons to the Nazis.

About the Author

Rick Hutto served as White House Appointments Secretary to the Carter Family and was Chairman of the Georgia Council for the Arts. A former attorney, he is an internationally recognized writer and lecturer and has been featured as an on-air historical expert. One of his books was adapted for television. Hutto has written extensively about the marriage of America's Gilded Age heiresses to titled husbands.