Hedwig von Rittberg

Auguste Leopoldine Hedwig Countess of Rittberg (1839–1896) was a Prussian-German decorated nurse, hospital supervisor and founder of the Auxiliary Sisters Association.

Life and work

Hedwig von Rittberg was born 30 December 1839 in Liegnitz in Silesia to the Prussian major Count August von Rittberg and Henriette von Netz. She was the youngest of eleven children. After her father rejected her wish to become a deaconess, she took care of sick relatives. With the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War (1866) the young countess took up nursing and completed a course in the cuirassier barracks in Breslau, now Wrocław, Poland. In appreciation for her nursing service in Hořice and Gitschin during the three-month war, she received the Order of Louise, 1st class.

In 1873, Rittberg returned to Liegnitz, where she passed a pharmaceutical exam at the medical authority. On 1 October 1875, with two other sisters, she founded the Auxiliary Sisters Association in Berlin, to provide well-trained nurses for the home care of the sick regardless of class or denomination.

Legacy After the Countess died, the "Auxiliary Sisters' Association" was renamed the "Countess Rittberg Auxiliary Sisters' Association" and then renamed again becoming the "Countess Rittberg Sisters' Association of the Red Cross." In 1975, the association officially became part of the German Red Cross of Berlin. Coincidentally, Rittberg had been an early advocate for an international organization such as the Red Cross to care for the sick and wounded.