Baron Jules Adolphe de Kœnigswarter (also Königswarter) (7 March 1904 – 15 February 1995), was a French soldier and diplomat of Jewish descent.
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Early life
Koenigswarter was born on 7 March 1904 at 22 Rue Galilée in Paris into a large and prominent Königswarter family. He was the son of French banker Baron Louis de Koenigswarter (1870–1931) and Jeanne Thècle (née Kauffmann) de Koenigswarter. His younger sister, Marguerite de Koenigswarter, was married to André Gustave Bicart-Sée.
The Koenigswarter barony had been created in 1870 by Emperor Napoleon III for his great-grandfather, Louis-Jean Koenigswarter, Deputy for the Seine. His paternal grandparents were Jules Louis Maximilien Koenigswarter (son of Louis Jean Kœnigswarter) and Angelica Lea (née Franchetti) Koenigswarter, who was born in Livorno, Italy. One aunt, Alice de Kœnigswarter, was married to composer Fernand Halphen, and another aunt, Hélène Joséphine Koenigswarter, was married to publisher Gaston Calmann-Lévy and, after their divorce, Marie Charles Arnaud Reynard Gilbert, Comte de Choiseul-Praslin. His cousin, Robert Calmann-Lévy, also married into the Rothschild family when he married Jacqueline de Rothschild in July 1930.
Career
He studied at the École des Mines de Paris, becoming a civil engineer. At the outbreak of World War II, Koenigswarter joined the Free French Forces, and led troops in Africa and Europe. During the war, his children Patrick and Janka stayed with the Guggenheim family on Long Island. Much of his extended family perished in the Holocaust, including his mother, who dismissed his entreaties and instructions to escape and was murdered at Auschwitz. For his efforts during the war, he was awarded the Croix de Guerre, the Companion of the Liberation, and was made a Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur.