Viola Herms Drath

Viola Herms Drath ( born February 8, 1920 in Dusseldorf, † August 12 2011 in Georgetown, Washington DC) was a German - American author and journalist.

Life

Viola Herms was born in Dusseldorf in a wealthy family. She attended a boarding school in Scotland and spoke fluent English. She studied art and fashion and worked as a playwright, in 1946 her piece " Farewell, Isabell " was performed at the Theater Straubing. In addition, she was active as a journalist at various newspapers. The late forties she met her future husband, Lt.. Col. Francis S. Drath, know who was stationed as deputy military governor of Bavaria. She followed her husband in 1947 to Lincoln, Nebraska, and took her studies in philosophy and literature at. Meanwhile, she also worked for German language magazines in the U.S. and as America correspondent for German newspapers.

1968 the family moved ( a daughter was born in 1962 ) to Washington DC, where Drath took a job as a foreign correspondent for Handelsblatt. Almost 27 years she remained working for the newspaper. Focus of their work were mostly German-American relations. As a journalist, and she associated in private circles of politics, art and culture.

Died in 1981, her husband Francis of cancer. A few months later she became engaged to the more than 40 years younger Germans Albrecht Gero Muth ( born 1964 ), whom she had met as interns at a press conference in early 1980. The couple were married in 1990 by a judge of the Supreme Court of Virginia. Courage resulted in the following years, an eccentric party lives in the same household, and gave himself inter alia as a German nobleman, Iraqi general or spy of different services, while he actually lived unemployed of monthly grants his wife. In 2002, the couple separated temporarily, as Muth entered into a relationship with a man with whom he contracted. Later Drath and Muth lived again in the same household.

Circumstances of death

12 August 2011 Muth alerted the police and claimed to have found his wife unconscious in the bathroom, where she had fallen. The accidental death, however, was strongly challenged, on 16 August Muth was officially the murder (second degree murder ) of his wife accused. On March 6, 2012, charged by a grand jury of the Superior Courts in the District of Columbia Advanced murder charge (first degree murder ) against Muth. In January 2014, the jury found him guilty.

Writings

  • Germany in world politics. Cyrco Press, 1979
  • Willy Brandt, prisoner of his past. Chilton Book, 1975
  • Commitment and provocation: Texts contemporary German authors. Macmillan, 1973
  • What do the Germans: 21 contemporaries. Macmillan, 1970
  • Typically German?. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1969
  • The complicated German: intimate conversations. Blaisdell, 1967
  • Reporter in Germany: a reader for beginners. Holt, 1959
  • Goethe's Elective Affinities and Friedrich Schlegel Lucinda. M. A. University of Nebraska1953
Georgetown (Washington, D.C.) WorldCat Integrated Authority File
805838
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