Johanna Kinkel

Kinkel was born in Bonn to Catholic parents Marianna and Peter Joseph Mockel, a school teacher at the Bonner Lycée.

[1] She spent a few years living and composing in Berlin, where she attended salons and formed friendships with women such as Bettina von Arnim and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel.

The marriage quickly turned restrictive and abusive as Matthieux forbade his young wife from any activity beyond her domestic duties and tyrannized her to her psychological limits.

Her tombstone was inscribed Freiheit, Liebe und Dichtung (meaning Freedom, Love, and Poetry).

In 1853, the German composer Elise Schmezer premiered her opera Otto der Schütz, which was based on earlier works by Alexandre Dumas and Johanna Kinkel.