Adolf Georg von Maltzan

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Adolf Georg Otto "Ago" von Maltzan, Freiherr zu Wartenberg and Penzlin (born July 31, 1877 in Klein Varchow , Mecklenburg ; † September 23, 1927 near Schleiz , Thuringia) was one of the outstanding German diplomats during the Weimar Republic . He became State Secretary of the Foreign Office and later the German Ambassador in Washington.

Adolf Georg von Maltzan (right) visiting US Secretary of State Hughes (left) in Berlin (1924)

Life

Maltzan, who was usually briefly called Ago based on the initials of his first names , was born in 1877 as the first child of the manor owner Ulrich von Maltzan and his wife Adelheit Bierbaum and came from the nobility of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Maltzahn family . Maltzan spent his childhood on Klein Varchow and from 1891 - after the death of his grandfather Adolf von Maltzan  - in Grossen Luckow (today part of Dahmen ).

This was followed by a visit to the Katharineum in Lübeck up to high school graduation in Easter 1896 and from 1896 studying law at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and the Schlesische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Breslau . In 1896 he became a member of the Corps Borussia Bonn . After completing his studies and military service, Maltzan joined the diplomatic service of the German Reich in 1906 .

There he was first appointed as secretary of the legation in Rio de Janeiro (1907), Kristiania (1909), St. Petersburg (1911) and Beijing (1912). Between his stays abroad he passed the diplomatic examination (1908) and took over “home post” in the Foreign Office in Berlin or in the Berlin Reich Chancellery and at the Prussian legation in Stuttgart. In 1912 he was promoted to the Legation Council .

During the First World War, Maltzan acted, among other things, from 1917 as a representative of the Foreign Office at the Commander- in -Chief in the East and from December 1917 he acted in The Hague .

In 1919/1920 Maltzan was appointed Reich Commissioner for the East responsible for the newly formed Baltic countries Estonia and Latvia , where he organized the withdrawal of the German troops there and at the same time the protection of East Prussia . Subsequently, Maltzan - since 1921 Ministerial Director and since 1922 State Secretary - head of the Russian Department of the Foreign Office. As such, Maltzan was instrumental in bringing about the Rapallo Treaty between Germany and Soviet Russia (from the end of 1922 Soviet Union ), which was signed on April 16, 1922. His friend Werner von Rheinbaben therefore later described him as "the soul of German Ostpolitik", as the "best horse in the stable of the German diplomatic service" and said that Maltzan had "determined the orientation of German Russia policy until 1933". Others characterized Maltzan as a politician who "put everything, all relationships, tradition, even Germany's interests behind his personal interests with an irresistible career urge".

In 1924 (delivery of the credentials on March 12, 1925) Maltzan was sent to Washington, DC as ambassador .

During a stay at home in 1927, Maltzan, whom an edition of the Vossische Zeitung of the time praised as "the most capable diplomat Germany has ever had", died when his plane crashed over Schleiz in Thuringia on the way from Berlin to Munich . His body was buried on his parents' estate in Grosse Luckow.

literature

Web links

Commons : Adolf Georg von Maltzan  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hermann Genzken: The Abitur graduates of the Katharineum in Lübeck (grammar school and secondary school) from Easter 1807 to 1907. Borchers, Lübeck 1907, urn : nbn: de: hbz: 061: 1-305545 , No. 1030
  2. ^ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 9 , 795
  3. ↑ Werner von Rheinbaben : Four times Germany. From the experience of a seaman, diplomat, politician 1895–1954 . Argon-Verlag, Berlin 1954, p. 236.
  4. ^ Harry Graf Kessler : Diaries 1918 to 1937 . Edited by Pfeiffer-Belli. 5th edition. Berlin 2013, p. 569.
personal data
SURNAME Maltzan, Adolf Georg von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Maltzan, Ago; Maltzan zu Wartenberg and Penzlin, Adolf Georg Otto von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH July 31, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Klein Varchow, Mecklenburg
DATE OF DEATH September 23, 1927
Place of death near Schleiz , Thuringia