August von Dönhoff

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under August von Dönhoff (explanation of terms ) .

Count Dönhoff as a student

August Karl Graf von Dönhoff-Friedrichstein (born January 26, 1845 in Frankfurt am Main , † September 9, 1920 at Schloss Friedrichstein (East Prussia) ) was a Prussian nobleman and politician.

Life

August von Dönhoff came from the East Prussian branch of the Dönhoffs . His father was the diplomat and Prussian Foreign Minister August Heinrich Hermann von Dönhoff , his mother Pauline, née Countess von Lehndorff . August grew up in the family castle Friedrichstein not far from Königsberg i. Pr. And attended the Kneiphöfische Gymnasium . After graduating from high school, he studied law at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn . In 1865 he was in the Corps Borussia Bonn recipiert . As a Prussian major , he took part in the German War at the age of 21 . He was a trainee lawyer at the Supreme Court from 1868 to 1870 and then served again as a major in the Franco-German War . Like his father, August von Dönhoff embarked on a diplomatic career and worked as legation secretary with the rank of legation councilor for the Empire in Paris , Vienna , London , Saint Petersburg and Washington . In Washington he made friends with Interior Minister Carl Schurz and accompanied him on an adventurous journey to the American West. Dönhoff resigned his diplomatic offices when, after the death of his father in 1874, he took over his hereditary seat in the Prussian manor house . In the Reichstag election in 1881 , he entered the German Reichstag (German Empire) as a representative of the German Conservatives . He was elected in the Reichstag constituency of Königsberg 4 (Fischhausen-Königsberg-Land) . He belonged to this until 1903 and represented the interests of the East Elbe nobility and large estates. In 1906 he became the Prussian court master . In 1917 August von Dönhoff was one of the founding members of the German Fatherland Party , which advocated a policy of perseverance and a victory peace in the First World War. Dönhoff died at the age of 75 at Friedrichstein Castle.

family

In 1896 August von Dönhoff married Maria von Lepel (1869–1940), 24 years his junior in Karwitz , with whom he had eight children:

• Wilhelm (born / died 1897)
• Christa (1898–1924), married. 1922 with Bruno Freiherrn von Dellingshausen
• Heinrich Botho Eugen von Dönhoff (1899–1942), married. 1938 with Dorothea Countess von Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg
• Yvonne Franziska Ilda (1901–1991), married. 1919 with Alexander von Kuenheim
• Dietrich Wilfried Georg Karl (1902–1991), married. 1933 with Karin ("Sissi") Countess von Lehndorff
• Christoph August Bernhard (1906–1992), married. 1931 with Vera Burkart
• Maria Elisabeth Helene Freda (1908–1965), b. with Down syndrome , died in Bethel
• Marion Hedda Ilse von Dönhoff (1909–2002)

See also

• List of corps students in the Reichstag of the German Empire
• List of corps students in the Prussian mansion

literature

• Kilian Heck, Christian Thielemann (ed.): Friedrichstein. The castle of the Counts of Dönhoff in East Prussia. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-422-06593-8 .
• Marion Countess Dönhoff : Names that nobody mentions anymore. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2009, ISBN 978-3-499-62477-3 .
• Eckhard Hansen, Florian Tennstedt (Eds.) U. a .: Biographical lexicon on the history of German social policy from 1871 to 1945 . Volume 1: Social politicians in the German Empire 1871 to 1918. Kassel University Press, Kassel 2010, ISBN 978-3-86219-038-6 , p. 34 ( online , PDF; 2.2 MB).

Web links

• Count Dönhoff-Friedrichstein, August in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Biography of August Graf-Comte Doehnhoff . In: Heinrich Best : database of the members of the Reichstag of the Empire 1867/71 to 1918 (Biorab - Kaiserreich)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1930, 11/523
2. ^ Fritz Specht, Paul Schwabe: The Reichstag elections from 1867 to 1903. Statistics of the Reichstag elections together with the programs of the parties and a list of the elected representatives. 2nd Edition. Carl Heymann Verlag, Berlin 1904, p. 3.