Felix von Gutschmid

Felix Freiherr von Gutschmid during his time as legation secretary in Japan

Felix Friedrich Wilhelm Eduard Heinrich Freiherr von Gutschmid (born October 10, 1843 in Kollm , † October 17, 1905 in Dresden ) was a German diplomat .

Life

Gutschmid studied law at the Georg-August University of Göttingen and the University of Leipzig , where he was a member of the Corps Saxonia and Misnia . After completing his studies, he undertook a five-year trip around the world and joined the Foreign Office as an attaché in 1874 . He became legation secretary in Tokyo in 1875 , secretary at the German embassy in Constantinople in 1880 and later legation secretary in Athens , Copenhagen and Paris . In 1886 he went to Chile as an envoy , where he campaigned for Friedrich Krupp's arms exports against French competition. In 1892 von Gutschmid returned to Japan. As ambassador to Tokyo, he was also chairman of the East Asian Society (OAG) from 1893 to 1896 . At the end of the First Sino-Japanese War he took for the German Empire, which was in a tripartite coalition with France and Russia, in the intervention of Shimonoseki significant influence on the outcome of the peace treaty of Shimonoseki .

After his retirement, Gutschmid lived in Dresden. He died here in 1905 and was buried in the Johannisfriedhof .

literature

• Wolfgang von der Groeben: Directory of the members of the Corps Saxonia zu Göttingen 1844 to 2006. Düsseldorf 2006, p. 32.
• Christian W. Spang, Rolf-Harald Wippich: Japanese-German relations 1895-1945. War, Diplomacy and Public Opinion. 2006, p. 65 ff. ( At google books )
• Donald J. Stocker, Jonathan A. Grant: Girding for battle. The arms trade in a global perspective 1815-1940. 2003, p. 58 ff. ( At google books )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ death survey. In: Dresdner Geschichtsblätter , year 1907, No. 1, p. 136.