Bernhard von Bülow

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Bernhard von Bülow (1895)
Bernhard von Bülow signature.svg

Bernhard Heinrich Martin Karl von Bülow , count from 1899 , Prince von Bülow from 1905 (born May 3, 1849 in Klein Flottbek , † October 28, 1929 in Rome ), was a German politician and statesman . From 1897 he was State Secretary for Foreign Affairs and from October 1900 to July 1909 Chancellor of the German Empire .

Bülow made a career as a diplomat. As State Secretary he held an office in the Empire that roughly corresponded to a current minister. During this time he developed into a leading person in the Reich leadership. The Chancellor Bülow succeeded in working with both the Kaiser and the various parties in the Reichstag. In terms of foreign policy, he probably avoided the outbreak of war, but was partly to blame for the deterioration in relations with Great Britain in particular.

His father Bernhard Ernst von Bülow was also State Secretary for Foreign Affairs from 1876–1879, his nephew Bernhard Wilhelm von Bülow (1885–1936) was State Secretary and representative of the Foreign Minister from 1930 to 1936.

ancestry

Von Bülow was born as the son of Bernhard Ernst von Bülow (1815–1879) and his wife Luise Victorine nee. Rücker, a Hamburg citizen's daughter. His father was State Secretary in the Foreign Office under Otto von Bismarck . His mother's brother was the Hamburg Senator Alfred Rücker , his great-grandfather the Hamburg Senator Martin Johann Jenisch the Elder . His first cousin from Hamburg was Wilhelm v. Godeffroy, Bankhaus Jenisch & Godeffroy, in whose Berlin palace at Wilhelmstrasse 59 Bülow had lived for a long time. Godeffroy died in 1904 and made it possible for his cousin Bülow to accept the longed-for princely title with an extra legacy of five million gold marks . From the earnings of Dr. jur. Wilhelm Martin v. Godeffroy Family Fideikommiss Foundation , the Bülow couple then received large lifelong grants “to maintain a lifestyle that was appropriate to their class”.

The von Bülow family is an old Mecklenburg noble family with the parent house of the same name in the village of Bülow near Rehna . The name Bülow is first mentioned in a document when the foundation stone of the Ratzeburg Cathedral was laid (1154). The line begins with Godofridus de Bulowe (1229). Many members of the family made it to high offices in the state, in the military and in the church, or rendered outstanding services to cultural life.

Education and diplomatic career

Maria von Bülow born Beccadelli di Bologna, Principessa di Camporeale, portrait of a youth painted by Franz von Lenbach , 1873.

Bernhard von Bülow attended high schools in Frankfurt am Main and Strelitz and, at the age of fifteen, switched to pedagogy in Halle , where he passed the school leaving examination in 1867. He studied law at the University of Lausanne , in Berlin and at the University of Leipzig , participated as a volunteer in the Hussar Regiment "King Wilhelm I" No. 7 in the Franco-German War of 1870/71 and became an officer after the war . However, he returned to the judiciary and took the legal clerk examination at the University of Greifswald in 1872 .

At the regional court and district presidium in Metz - Alsace-Lorraine had been part of the German Empire since the end of the Franco-Prussian War - he prepared for the judicial and administrative service until 1874. Then he joined the Foreign Service. The fact that his father had been friends with Otto von Bismarck since they worked together in the Bundestag in Frankfurt am Main had a positive effect on Bülow's diplomatic career . Bernhard von Bülow came to St. Petersburg and Vienna as legation and embassy secretary, in 1876 he became attaché to the German embassy in Rome , and in 1877 chargé d'affaires in Athens. From March 1878 he worked at the German embassy in Paris , where he was appointed second secretary in November. In the meantime, in the summer of 1878, Bülow was assigned to the secretariat of the Berlin Congress . In Paris he had to spy on the family of the banker Adolf Wilhelm von Kessler on behalf of the Berlin court . A scandal broke out there when Bülow tried in vain to seduce his attractive wife Alice, the mother of Harry Kessler , in the absence of her well-traveled husband. In his later memoirs, he assumed that Adolf von Kessler had used his wife's beauty profitably for his business interests. In August 1883, after an internal intrigue, he became first secretary at the embassy in Paris and in July 1884 he moved to St. Petersburg as counselor. In 1888 he became envoy to Bucharest and in 1893 went to Rome as ambassador .

In 1886 he married Maria Beccadelli di Bologna , Princess di Camporeale, an Italian noblewoman who had previously been married to a Count von Dönhoff-Friedrichstein. The marriage remained childless.

State Secretary for Foreign Affairs

Reich Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow with his wife Maria in 1905 on Norderney

In 1897 he returned to Berlin, was appointed State Secretary for Foreign Affairs under Chancellor Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst in October 1897 , and worked in this position for three years in the Foreign Office. In his first year in office he led negotiations with China about the lease of Kiautschou with the later rapidly flourishing port city of Tsingtau . In a debate in the Reichstag on December 6, 1897, he justified this expansion of colonial interests with the words: “We don't want to overshadow anyone, but we also demand our place in the sun. In East Asia as in West India we will endeavor [...] to protect our rights and interests without unnecessarily sharpness, but also without weakness. ”With this statement in front of parliament he indirectly announced a departure from Bismarck's policy of equalization towards an expansive colonialism .

In Berlin, he led the negotiations with Great Britain and the United States , which led to the Samoa Agreement of 1899, which provided that the German Empire received Western Samoa with the two main islands of Savaiʻi and Upolu with the port of Apia as a protected area . In 1899, he also led the negotiations that led to the acquisition of the Mariana Islands , which had belonged to Spain since 1565 (with the exception of Guam , which went to the United States of America) and the Carolines , which were also Spanish . He promoted the development of the colonies and the trade in colonial products . The Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900 also fell during his term of office as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs .

He kept in personal contact with Philipp zu Eulenburg , a friend of the emperor who made a significant contribution to establishing Bülow as a candidate for chancellor. Bülow knew a lot about people and had a reputation for resorting to flattery when this was promising. He once wrote to Eulenburg: “He (the emperor) is so important. The most important Hohenzoller after Frederick the Great ”, apparently in the expectation that this praise would be communicated to Kaiser Wilhelm II - who was no stranger to vanity.

Chancellor

appointment

On October 17, 1900, after Hohenlohe's resignation for reasons of age and because Wilhelm II had just failed to enforce the prison bill in the Reichstag, Bülow became Reich Chancellor and Prussian Prime Minister . Kaiser Wilhelm II had high hopes for him:

"Bülow is to become my Bismarck, and wherever like this and my grandfather Germany hammered together on the outside, we will clear away the filth of the parliamentary and party apparatus inside."

As Chancellor, Bülow was loyal to the Kaiser, but criticized his “personal policy”; but without success.

Like his advisor Friedrich August von Holstein (1837–1909), Bülow was convinced that the German Reich should develop a “free hand” foreign policy appropriate to its economic strength, and supported the naval laws presented by Alfred von Tirpitz . Towards the end of the 19th century, the German Empire had become the second largest export nation behind Great Britain and ahead of the United States, but the German merchant ships, on which goods worth several dozen billion marks were transported annually, were in contrast to the British and American merchant ships largely unprotected. One of the main political tasks of Bülow was to ensure that the building of warships forced by Wilhelm II could proceed smoothly and was not hindered or prevented by the imperial powers competing in trade. The acquisition of overseas possessions was intended to secure bases with protected ports on the world's oceans for the fleet. An important goal of Bülows was the construction of railways such as the Baghdad Railway and the realization of railway projects in the African colonies (see list of German colonial railways ).

Chancellorship

Bernhard Fürst von Bülow (left) in the Berlin zoo .
Bernhard von Bülow, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Rudolf von Valentini (from left to right) on board the Hohenzollern in Kiel , 1908

He continued the German-British alliance talks initiated by Great Britain only hesitantly until they failed in 1901. On January 8, 1902, von Bülow held his so-called "Granitbeißerrede" in the Reichstag against the British Colonial Minister Joseph Chamberlain , who had justified the British actions in the Boer War by comparing them with the actions of the Germans in the Franco-German War . From then on, German-British relations were permanently clouded.

In 1904, the Doggerbank incident occurred when Russian warships accidentally sank a British fishing boat in the North Sea. In the course of this conflict, von Bülow sought rapprochement with Russia. In fact, it only worsened the existing conflict with Britain.

In the same year the Entente between France and Great Britain was formed, and in 1905/06 the German Empire proved to be isolated in the first Moroccan crisis . Although von Bülow was largely responsible for this development through his uncooperative policies, in his Reichstag speech of November 14, 1906, he accused Germany's opponents of " encircling ". From then on, this term became an often used catchphrase.

During Bülow's tenure, the uprisings in German East Africa and German South West Africa ( Herero uprising 1904), the subsequent administrative reorganization of the protected areas (self-government, rural companies), the diamond discovery, the establishment of an independent Reich Office for colonial administration and the associated political struggles also fell which led to the dissolution and re-election of the Reichstag in 1907. He turned against the genocide of the Herero, which contradicts "all principles of Christianity and humanity", causes economic damage and damages the international reputation.

From 1907, Bernhard von Bülow was drawn into the Harden-Eulenburg affair internally . In September 1907, Adolf Brand suspected the Chancellor of intimate contact with the private secretary Max Scheefer. These allegations were denied by Bernhard von Bülow, Philipp zu Eulenburg and Magnus Hirschfeld in the trial against Brand and rejected by the court. In a study published in 2010, the historian Peter Winzen takes the view that it was von Bülow himself who supplied the journalist Maximilian Harden with incriminating material against Eulenburg. In this way he wanted to eliminate his former friend Eulenburg, an intimate of the emperor who had meanwhile worked towards a replacement of Bülows.

From around the summer of 1907, Bülow suggested that the Kaiser slow down the construction of the fleet in order to appease the disgruntled British. However, he was unable to prevent Wilhelm II from saying a categorical “No” to reducing the number of fleets when he met the British King Edward in August 1908 in Friedrichshof.

In 1908, with regard to the problems in the Balkans, von Bülow made it unequivocally to understand that the interests of Austria-Hungary were decisive for the attitude of the German Reich. This “ loyalty to the Nibelungs ”, which was demonstrated in his Reichstag speech of March 29, 1909 on the Bosnian annexation crisis and expressly referred to as “ loyalty to the Nibelungs ”, further restricted the German scope for action.

resignation

In connection with his behavior before and during the so-called " Daily Telegraph Affair ", Bernhard von Bülow finally lost the emperor's trust. This newspaper had published an article on German-British relations compromising the emperor and reproducing conversations between the emperor and the British colonel Edward Montagu-Stuart-Wortley . In Great Britain the arrogant behavior of Wilhelm was received with indignation and the German-British relationship reached a low point. In Germany, too, more and more tones were heard calling for a clear constitutional restriction of imperial powers, and a serious state crisis was looming. The parties in the Reichstag were united against the emperor.

Chancellor Bülow was largely to blame for the scandal, as it would have been his job to check the text of the interview before it was published. As early as 1902, the Chancellor had behaved in a similarly negligent manner with the Swinemünde dispatch .

In the Reichstag, however, he did not give Wilhelm II any backing and the latter finally had to give in to the great public pressure and promise to moderate his statements in the future. This removed any basis of trust in the relationship between the emperor and the chancellor. On July 14, 1909, Bülow submitted his resignation after there had been differences of opinion within the party bloc that supported him ( Bülow bloc made up of conservatives and liberals) about the budget and the reform of the inheritance tax .

After the resignation

Grave of Bernhard von Bülow (right) and his wife Maria (left) in the Nienstedten cemetery

In 1909 Bülow moved to Rome, where he bought a villa for his time after retirement. There he wrote a book about the Sixth Coalition War, in which he also defended his politics. In 1914, in view of the dramatically worsening foreign policy situation, von Bülow became a special envoy in Rome (1914–1915) with the task of persuading Italy to remain in the Triple Alliance. Bülow was entrusted with this job because of his special family ties and close ties to leading statesmen in Italy. Still, he was unsuccessful. For this he later blamed the indecision and lack of foresight of his despised successor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg , who had not given him enough support. In 1917, Bülow came up again as a possible successor to Bethmann Hollweg, but was not considered by the Kaiser.

After the end of the war, Bülow lived in Rome on a lifelong pension in the Villa Malta . It was paid for by Ullstein Verlag as a fee for providing his memorabilia , which the publisher was only allowed to publish after Bülow's death.

Bülow, who was fluent in four languages, was considered a social lion with great charm and impressive oratorical brilliance. At the same time, however, he was said to be opportunistic, since on the one hand he never contradicted Kaiser Wilhelm II energetically enough, but on the other hand largely left him in the lurch in times of crisis. In 1930/31 the four volumes of Memoirs appeared , which caused a sensation in particular because of the negative characterization of Wilhelm II.

During his chancellorship he managed to avoid war, but half a decade after his resignation the First World War (1914-1918) began, a catastrophe that he had promoted with his world power policy, which went far beyond Bismarck's policy.

Bülow was traded as a potential chancellor in 1921, but was not acceptable to the majority of the citizens and the Reichstag.

His wife Maria Anna Zoe Rosalie Fürstin von Bülow died in Rome on January 26, 1929, and he himself died on October 28, 1929. Both were buried next to each other in the Nienstedten cemetery in Hamburg-Nienstedten (approximate grave location: 53 ° 33 ′ 13.1 ″  N , 9 ° 50 '33 "  E ).

Honors

Fonts

  • German Politics , edited and introduced by Peter Winzen. Bouvier Verlag, Bonn 1992, ISBN 3-416-80662-X .
  • Path to political maturity , Berlin 1917.
  • Memorabilia . Edited by Franz von Stockhammern. Ullstein, Berlin 1930/31:
  • Germany and the powers that be . Dresden 1929.
  • Prince von Bülow's speeches . Edited by Wilhelm von Massow. 5 volumes. Leipzig 1910.
  • Collected with the permission of the Reich Chancellor and edited. from Johannes Penzler:
    1. Volume - 1897-1903, archive.org
    2. Volume 2: Prince Bülow's speeches along with documentary contributions to his politics - 1903–1906 (collected with the permission of the Reich Chancellor and edited by Johannes Penzler [1907]), archive.org

literature

Web links

Commons : Bernhard von Bülow  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Bernhard von Bülow  - Sources and full texts
Wikiquote: Bernhard von Bülow  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bogdan Graf von Hutten-Czapski: Sixty years of politics and society . Berlin 1935, Volume 1, p. 328
  2. ↑ Birgit Scheps: The Museum Sold - The South Sea Enterprises of the trading house Joh. Ces. Godeffroy & Sohn, Hamburg and the “Museum Godeffroy” collections. Natural Science Association in Hamburg, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-937783-11-3 , pp. 218-219.
  3. ↑ P. von Bülow: Family book of the von Bülows. Berlin 1858/59 (2 parts), supplementary volume 1873. Meyers Enzyklopädisches Lexikon , Biographisches Institut, Mannheim / Vienna / Zurich 1972, volume 5, p. 59.
  4. ^ Heinrich Otto Meisner:  Bülow, from. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 727 f. ( Digitized version ).
  5. ^ Laird M. Easton: The Red Count. Harry Kessler and his time. From the American by Klaus Kochmann. 2nd Edition. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-93694-0 , p. 28 f.
  6. ↑ Germany's place in the sun . Wikisource
  7. ↑ Michael Fröhlich: Imperialism. German colonial and world politics 1880–1914 . dtv, Munich 1994, p. 82.
  8. ↑ Christopher Clark : Prussia. Rise and fall. 1600-1947. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-421-05392-3 , p. 691
  9. ↑ Bernd-Ulrich Hergemöller: Man for Man - Biographical Lexicon . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 2001, p. 160
  10. ^ Marita Keilson-Lauritz : Wilhelmshagen against the German Empire. Adolf Brand's pamphlet against the Reich Chancellor von Bülow . In: Capri , September 17, 1994, pp. 2-16.
  11. ↑ Peter Winzen: The end of imperial glory. The lawsuits surrounding the homosexual advisers of Wilhelm II. 1907-1909 . Cologne 2010, p. 71 ff.
  12. ↑ a b Bülow, Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin, Prince von . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 30 : Abbe - English history . London 1922, p. 522 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
  13. ↑ Erich Eyck : The personal regiment of Wilhelm II. Political history of the German Empire from 1890 to 1914 . Eugen Rentsch Verlag, Erlenbach-Zurich 1948, p. 186
  14. ↑ Peter Winzen: Bernhard Fürst von Bülow - Weltmachstratege without fortune, pioneer of the great catastrophe ( personality and history , volume 163). Muster-Schmidt-Verlag, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-7881-0154-7 .
  15. ↑ Court and State Manual of the Kingdom of Württemberg , 1907, p. 50
  16. ↑ Bülowplatz . In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein
personal data
SURNAME Bülow, Bernhard von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bülow, Bernhard Heinrich Martin von; Bülow, Bernhard Prince of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German statesman
DATE OF BIRTH May 3, 1849
PLACE OF BIRTH Klein Flottbek near Hamburg-Altona
DATE OF DEATH October 28, 1929
Place of death Rome