Who Is Annaliese Witschak? The Amazing Life Story of George Soros’ First Wife

Annaliese Witschak was the first wife of billionaire investor George Soros, but her own story reaches far beyond that title. Born in northern Germany in 1934, she lost her father as a toddler, lost her mother and only brother before she turned 17, and then built an independent life as a secretary in Hamburg. At 21, she crossed the Atlantic alone and settled in New York City. There she met a young Hungarian immigrant named George Soros, married him in 1960, and raised three children while hosting some of the city’s most lively dinner tables. After the marriage ended, she became a devoted patron of young classical musicians and a regular at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera. She died on September 5, 2025, at age 91. This article covers her early life, marriage, children, philanthropy, and legacy, drawing on her New York Times obituary and other published sources.

Who Is Annaliese Witschak?

Annaliese Witschak, later known as Annaliese Soros, was a German American music patron, homemaker, and author who became publicly known as the first wife of George Soros. She never held a public office or ran a company, and she rarely gave interviews. Her reputation grew instead from her private generosity toward young artists and from the people who filled her home. The table below gives a quick overview of her life.

Detail	Information
Full name	Annaliese Witschak
Also known as	Annaliese Soros
Date of birth	January 3, 1934
Place of birth	Verden an der Aller, Lower Saxony, Germany
Date of death	September 5, 2025 (age 91, natural causes)
Nationality	German American
Parents	Walter and Elisabeth
Sibling	One brother, Hans (deceased)
Early career	Secretary in publishing and at Shell Oil in Hamburg
Moved to the United States	1955
First job in New York	Secretary and keypunch operator at an insurance company
Spouse	George Soros (married 1960, separated 1977, divorced 1983)
Remarriage	Never remarried
Children	Robert Daniel Soros, Andrea Soros Colombel, Jonathan Tivadar Soros
Grandchildren	Nine at the time of her obituary
Known for	Classical music patronage, Young Concert Artists board service, hosting
Author of	Dinner Party Disasters: True Stories of Culinary Catastrophe (2007)
Homes	New York City, Southampton (summer), and an apartment in Berlin
Net worth	Not publicly disclosed

Where Was Annaliese Witschak Born and How Did She Grow Up?

Annaliese Witschak was born on January 3, 1934, in Verden an der Aller, a town in northern Germany. Her father, Walter, died in 1937, when she was three years old. Her mother, Elisabeth, then moved the family to nearby Neuenkirchen bei Soltau and supported them through odd jobs, bookkeeping, and occasional articles and poems for a local paper.

Annaliese remembered her childhood as a lot of work, with both farm and household chores to handle. Still, school brought her real joy. She excelled in class, and her music teacher left a lasting mark on her life. He encouraged her to join the chorus and study piano. When she was 15, he took the class to see an opera in Hanover, and she later wrote that it felt like a whole other world opened up for her.

Loss came quickly after that. Her mother and her only brother, Hans, died within six months of each other, which left Annaliese an orphan at 16. She gave up piano in her grief, yet music and opera stayed with her for the rest of her life and comforted her through hard times. Some websites describe her as a war orphan, but her obituary points to a childhood shaped by family deaths and hard work rather than a single event.

She hoped to continue her studies. Her aunt and uncle refused to pay for university, though, and insisted on secretarial school so she could support herself.

How Did Annaliese Witschak Build an Independent Life?

Annaliese Witschak built her independence by moving to Hamburg, finishing secretarial training, and working her way up on her own. Living away from relatives for the first time, she began to flourish. She rented a room with a friend she met while staying at the Salvation Army, and the two women lived so frugally that they sometimes shared a single bread roll for breakfast.

She found work as a secretary, first in publishing and later at Shell Oil. She loved dancing and music, and whenever she had spare money, she bought standing room tickets to concerts. After several years, she felt restless. With little to tie her to Germany, she boarded a ship for New York in 1955.

The crossing took five days, and she spent all of it seasick in bed. She never forgot her first sight of the Statue of Liberty through the porthole as the ship entered the harbor. In New York, she found work as a secretary and keypunch operator for an insurance company. Her new colleagues helped her find her footing in the city, which became her permanent home.

How Did Annaliese Witschak Meet George Soros?

Annaliese Witschak met George Soros in 1957, about a year after he arrived in New York himself. Soros had been born in Budapest in 1930 to a Jewish family, survived the Nazi occupation of Hungary as a teenager, and studied philosophy at the London School of Economics. He moved to New York in 1956 and started as an arbitrage trader at the brokerage F. M. Mayer.

Her obituary describes him as unlike anyone she had ever met and says she fell madly in love with him. Several online biographies report that the two first crossed paths at an outdoor concert at Tanglewood in the Berkshires, a story that fits their shared love of music, although her obituary does not name a venue.

Their backgrounds differed. Annaliese was German and not Jewish, while Soros came from a Hungarian Jewish family. Even so, published accounts say his parents welcomed her warmly. Both his family and hers had lived through the upheaval and hardship of the war years, and that shared history helped them connect.

When Did Annaliese Witschak Marry George Soros?

Annaliese Witschak and George Soros married in 1960, and several biographical profiles give the date as September 17. The couple settled first in an apartment in Greenwich Village and later moved to Central Park West.

At the time of the wedding, Soros had not yet made his fortune. He worked as an analyst of European securities at Wertheim and Company, and later as a vice president at Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder. He started his first hedge fund, Double Eagle, in 1969 and founded Soros Fund Management in 1970. In other words, Annaliese lived through the years when her husband was still building his career, long before the headlines about his trading and philanthropy.

What Was Married Life Like for Annaliese and George Soros?

Married life for Annaliese and George Soros centered on family, food, and conversation. Annaliese devoted herself to nurturing her family, and the couple had three children over seven years. They entertained often. Annaliese taught herself to cook to impress her husband and their guests, and she grew into an expert chef and a renowned host.

Their guest list stood out. Instead of business colleagues, their home filled with philosophers, academics, and writers, and later with activists who opposed apartheid. That mix suited George Soros, who had studied philosophy under Karl Popper and cared deeply about ideas.

Why Did Annaliese Witschak and George Soros Separate?

Annaliese Witschak and George Soros separated in 1977, and their divorce became final in 1983. Her obituary says they remained on good terms to the end. It does not give a reason for the split, and the family has not shared details about the settlement.

Some websites claim infidelity or a midlife crisis broke the marriage apart. Those claims come from secondary blogs that do not cite a primary source, so readers should treat them with caution. The best documented facts are the dates, the three children, and the lasting friendship.

Soros married again in 1983, this time to Susan Weber, and they divorced in 2005. They have two sons, Alexander and Gregory. In September 2013, Soros married Tamiko Bolton. In total, George Soros has married three times, and Annaliese was the first.

Who Are the Children of Annaliese Witschak?

Annaliese Witschak had three children with George Soros: Robert, Andrea, and Jonathan. Each built a public career of their own.

Robert Daniel Soros (born 1963). Robert is an investor and the founder of Soros Capital Management. He worked at Soros Fund Management and served as its co deputy chairman with his brother Jonathan starting in 2004. He married Melissa Robin Schiff in 1992 and later married Jamie Singer Soros in 2020.

Andrea Soros Colombel (born June 11, 1965). Andrea founded the Trace Foundation in 1993, which supports the cultural continuity and sustainable development of Tibetan communities in China. She is also a founding partner and board member of the Acumen Fund, a global venture fund that tackles poverty with an entrepreneurial approach. She is married to Eric Colombel.

Jonathan Tivadar Soros (born September 10, 1970). Jonathan is a co founder and partner of One Madison Group, a private investment firm. He worked at Soros Fund Management beginning in 2002, and his father called him the principal architect of the firm’s move to a healthy and stable investment operation. In 2012, he helped start a super PAC focused on reducing the influence of money in politics. He married Jennifer Ann Allan in 1997.

Her obituary lists nine grandchildren, aged 5 months to 31 years, who survived her.

What Did Annaliese Witschak Do After the Separation?

After the separation, Annaliese Witschak rediscovered her independence and pursued her own passions. She never remarried. She traveled the world, often on trips built around music festivals, biking, or hiking, and she made friends quickly and kept the best of them for decades.

In 2007, she wrote Dinner Party Disasters: True Stories of Culinary Catastrophe, a humorous collection of hosting mishaps that includes some of her own. The book grew naturally out of the decades she spent feeding and entertaining guests.

She also returned to the music that had comforted her as a girl. She became a familiar face at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera. Later in life, she traveled to Germany once or twice a year and rented an apartment in Berlin, a city with three opera houses and several concert halls, where she stayed through the performance season. She took her last trip to Berlin in 2024 to celebrate her ninetieth birthday.

How Did Annaliese Witschak Support Young Musicians?

Annaliese Witschak supported young musicians through board service, endowed programs, and personal hospitality. She backed the city’s larger cultural institutions, but she focused most on nurturing artists at the start of their careers.

Here are the main ways she helped:

• Young Concert Artists. She became a major benefactor of this organization, which gives emerging concert musicians representation and bookings. She served on its board of directors for more than 40 years, and the Annaliese Soros Educational Residency Program was endowed in her name in 2004.
• Southampton Performing Arts festival. She helped launch this classical concert series in 1981 in Southampton, New York, where she kept a summer home for six decades.
• Pianofest in the Hamptons. She joined the board of this summer master class residency program in the early 1990s and stayed until her death.
• Personal hospitality. She often welcomed artists to stay in her apartment so they could practice before New York performances, and she took a real interest in their personal and professional lives.

Friends who signed her online guest book described her as generous, kind, and quietly devoted to the arts. One wrote that many singers and musicians around the world thrive today because of her passion for their work.

When Did Annaliese Witschak Die?

Annaliese Witschak died on September 5, 2025, at the age of 91, of natural causes. Her obituary appeared in The New York Times on September 11, 2025. It described her as a mother, grandmother, music lover, patron, loving friend, and generous host, and it said the family planned a private memorial for a later date. It also invited donations in her honor to Young Concert Artists.

Many older websites still describe her as living and list her age as 90 or 92. Those pages predate her death or copy each other without checking. Wikidata and the published obituary both confirm the 2025 date, so readers should rely on those sources.

What Is Annaliese Witschak’s Legacy?

Annaliese Witschak’s legacy rests on the people she raised, the musicians she launched, and the friendships she kept. Her obituary says the network of committed friendships and her devotion to her family mattered most to her. Her affection and attention formed close bonds that reached across generations.

She also shows how much a person can build without public fame. She crossed the Atlantic alone at 21, worked as a secretary and keypunch operator, taught herself to cook, and later helped fund the careers of performers she might never have met otherwise. Her children now lead foundations and investment firms, and the programs she supported continue to train young artists.

For readers curious about George Soros, her story adds a human dimension. She knew him before the fortune, the hedge funds, and the political attention, and she stayed a friend after the marriage ended.

Conclusion

Annaliese Witschak lived a full and resilient life. She rose from an orphaned childhood in northern Germany to a home in New York, a family of three children, and a lasting place in the classical music community. Although the world knew her mostly as George Soros’ first wife, her decades of quiet support for young musicians define her best.

Frequently Asked Questions About Annaliese Witschak

Who is Annaliese Witschak?

Annaliese Witschak, later known as Annaliese Soros, was the first wife of investor and philanthropist George Soros. Born in Germany in 1934, she moved to New York in 1955, married Soros in 1960, and raised three children. She later became a respected patron of young classical musicians.

Did Annaliese Witschak die?

Yes. Annaliese Witschak died on September 5, 2025, at age 91, from natural causes, according to her New York Times obituary. Some older websites still list her as living and give her age as 92, but those pages have not been updated. Her obituary invites donations to Young Concert Artists.

How many children did Annaliese Witschak have?

Annaliese Witschak and George Soros had three children: Robert Daniel Soros (born 1963), Andrea Soros Colombel (born 1965), and Jonathan Tivadar Soros (born 1970). At the time of her obituary, she had nine grandchildren, ranging in age from 5 months to 31 years.

When did Annaliese Witschak marry and divorce George Soros?

Annaliese Witschak married George Soros in 1960. Her obituary says the couple split in 1977 but remained on good terms to the end, and reference sources list the divorce as final in 1983. Soros later married Susan Weber in 1983 and Tamiko Bolton in 2013.

What was Annaliese Witschak known for besides her marriage?

Beyond her marriage, Annaliese Witschak was known as a devoted classical music patron. She served on the board of Young Concert Artists for more than 40 years, helped launch the Southampton Performing Arts festival in 1981, joined the Pianofest in the Hamptons board, and wrote the 2007 book Dinner Party Disasters.