Guido Henckel von Donnersmarck

Guido Georg Friedrich Erdmann Heinrich Adalbert Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck, from 1901 Prince (Fürst) Henckel von Donnersmarck (born 10 August 1830 in Breslau, died 19 December 1916 in Berlin) was a German nobleman, industrial magnate, member of the House Henckel von Donnersmarck and one of the richest men of his time. He was married in his first marriage to the famed French courtesan Esther Lachmann, known as La Païva, of Russian Jewish origin.

Born in Breslau, Silesia, he was the son of Karl Lazarus Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck (1772–1864) and his wife Julie, née von Bohlen (1800–1866). When his older brother Karl Lazarus Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck died in 1848, his father transferred his numerous mining properties and ironworks in Silesia to Guido.

Henckel also had a sister, Wanda (1826–1907), who married in 1843 Ludwig, Prince von Schönaich-Carolath.Friedrich von Holstein claimed that the father of one of her sons was either a waiter or a coachman; "One must choose between the two," Holstein wrote.

Henckel lived in Paris in the 1860s with his mistress (later wife), Pauline Thérèse Lachmann, Marquise de Païva, known as La Païva, the most successful of 19th century French courtesans. He engaged in stock market speculations, and Otto von Bismarck sometimes found his shady contacts politically useful. Henckel purchased for his mistress the Château de Pontchartrain in Seine-et-Oise.

Like many other Prussian business and political figures, Henckel was a reserve officer, and during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 he was military governor in Metz and for competent for the to-be-annexed Département de la Lorraine (1871–1872). During the negotiations for the French war indemnity in 1871 he advised Bismarck that France could easily pay it - and indeed, the indemnity payments were completed ahead of schedule in 1873.

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