Longtime Southampton resident Christa von Hassell dies at 86

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Longtime Southampton resident Christa von Hassell (née von Studnitz—a descendant of Prussian military nobility) died on August 15 at her Southampton home. Described by family members as one of the last grandes dames of a world that straddled different eras, from a Prussia long gone to the present metropolitan glamour of New York City, she was 85.

Born December 21, 1923 in Muttrin, Pomerania, to Erika (née von Zitzewitz) and Lieutenant General Bogislav August Wilhelm von Studnitz, she grew up close to several military bases and lived with her father for several years before World War II while he served as German military attaché at the German Embassy in Poland. She studied art history in Prague during the war.

Her father was killed on the orders of Hitler on January 13, 1943, just days after her brother Lieutenant Hans-Melchior von Studnitz had been killed on the Ukrainian front. Her first husband, Egloff von Tippelskirch served in the German Army on the eastern front. He was captured by the Russian army and died in February 1946 in a prisoner of war camp.

During the Soviet occupation of East Germany, she lived with her mother in Altenburg in Thuringia and worked in an ammunition factory. When faced with the possibility of being sent to work in the mines, she managed to “promote” herself to teach English to Saxon school children in Altenburg. During this period, she repeatedly crossed the border from the Russian zone to the west at night in order to escort children of friends to the west. Eventually Ms. von Hassell convinced the Soviets that she needed to improve her English and was allowed to travel on a temporary basis to London. She flew out from Berlin on an empty coal plane that had delivered coal to Berlin, then under blockade by the Soviets. She did not return to Altenburg.

After living in England for a year, she established residence in Bonn and advised her mother to try to leave Altenburg. Meanwhile, her mother’s family estates in Pomerania—which had once numbered more than 25, employing more than 20,000 agricultural workers—had been seized by Soviet and Polish interests. In an incredible feat of commanding presence, her mother convinced a Soviet commissar to give her two railroad cars to move her remaining effects from occupied East Germany to Bonn.

In Bonn, where the new Federal Republic of Germany was formed, she joined the protocol office of the Foreign Office of “Auswärtiges Amt.” The first formal state dinners of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer were decorated with elaborate silver candelabras brought west by her mother. The young government, then still contending with a state of post-war scarcity, was delighted by the loan, family recalled.

She met and married Wolf Ulrich von Hassell, a member of the diplomatic service whose father, Ulrich von Hassell, was a prominent member of the German resistance during World War II, executed after the July 20, 1944, attempt on Hitler. Wolf von Hassell was one of the first two ambassadors of the Federal Republic of Germany to serve at the United Nations and was also a member of the German resistance against Hitler during World War II.

The couple lived in Rome, Brussels, and Bonn before moving to New York City in 1972. During her years in New York, in the official capacity of an ambassador’s wife, Ms. von Hassell hosted numerous dinners and receptions at the family’s apartment on Park Avenue. Based on a detailed diary that recorded seating charts, menus, and table decorations, the family estimated that she entertained more than 3,500 people in five years.

Following her husband’s retirement in 1978, she assumed an active role as a reporter in New York City’s art market. An art expert and critic, she was a longtime fixture at Christie’s and Sotheby’s auctions, covering the sales for Germany’s Weltkunst Magazine and Die Welt.

Dr. Hugo Weihe, International Director of Asian Art at Christie’s, said “Christa was uniquely passionate and interested in matters of art and the art world. She was inspired to discover new areas such as Buddhist sculpture from India and Tibet, and was generous in offering her insights based on years of closely following the auction scene in New York. Her observations were invaluable. I cherish the memory of her disciplined approach and passionate feeling for art and the people around it.”

She is survived by a son, Christian Augustin (Agostino) of New York City; a daughter, Malve von Hassell of Southampton; and three grandsons. She was predeceased by a son, Adrian von Hassell, who died on July 6 at New York Hospital Cornell Weill of complications related to his treatment for leukemia.

The family plans a memorial service for Ms. von Hassell and her son, Adrian von Hassell, on Saturday, September 19, from 5 to 8 p.m. at the New York Athletic Club, 180 Central Park South, on the corner of 7th Avenue in New York City. RSVPs to The Repton Group at, (212) 252-2090 or memorial@thereptongroup.com would be appreciated by the family.