Friedrich August von Holstein

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Friedrich of Holstein (1906)

Friedrich August Karl Ferdinand Julius von Holstein , called Fritz von Holstein (born April 24, 1837 in Schwedt ; † May 8, 1909 in Berlin ) was a German diplomat . Since Holstein exercised a significant influence on German foreign policy between 1890 and 1906 without appearing in public, the journalist Maximilian Harden described him as the Gray Eminence .

biography

Friedrich von Holstein came from the Mecklenburg nobility of Holstein . His father, August von Holstein (* 1800; † 1863), was a Prussian officer. His mother Karoline, née von Brünnow , was 45 years old when he was born. Holstein first grew up on Gut Trebenow in Pomerania . The family later moved to Berlin, where he attended the Kölln high school, where he graduated from high school in 1853. From 1853 to 1856 he studied law at the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin. Thanks to numerous trips to Europe, he spoke excellent French and Italian.

After serving as the City Court Berlin Auskultator and court clerk had collected professional experience, he turned in December 1860, the diplomatic career and became attaché at the German embassy in Petersburg under Otto von Bismarck and Kurd von Schlözer . When he entered the diplomatic service he had been helped by Bismarck, whom his father had known for a long time. From 1863 to 1867 Holstein worked successively as legation secretary at the Prussian missions in Rio de Janeiro , London , Washington , Stuttgart , Florence and from 1867 in Copenhagen .

In 1870 he was employed in the political department of the Foreign Office and in 1871 he was appointed to Versailles . Here Holstein was responsible for translating the surrender documents. In November 1871 he became second secretary of the embassy in Paris , and in May 1872 he was promoted to legation councilor.

Holstein caused a sensation in the affair of the ambassador in Paris, Count Harry von Arnim . The ambitious diplomat von Arnim was a thorn in Bismarck's side. On the one hand, Arnim wanted to inherit Bismarck in the chancellorship. On the other hand, the Paris ambassador supported the French monarchists. In order to overthrow Arnim, Holstein supplied the Chancellor with incriminating material. The machinations of Holstein, however, became public and the Berlin aristocratic circles behind Arnim resented the diplomat.

In April 1876, after the overthrow of Count Harry von Arnim, he returned to the Political Department of the Foreign Office, became Real Legation Councilor in 1878, Real Privy Legation Councilor in 1880, Deputy Undersecretary in 1883 and finally Real Secret Legation Councilor on March 31, 1891 with the title “ Excellence ". In the Foreign Office, Holstein gained a key position through his close relationship with Bismarck and his son Herbert . The diplomat tried to convey his ideas primarily through Herbert. Holstein also expanded his position by influencing personnel issues. For example, he put his friend Count Hatzfeldt through as State Secretary in the Foreign Office.

In the 1880s, Holstein increasingly distanced himself from Bismarck and Herbert von Bismarck. The diplomat criticized the Chancellor's pro-Russian foreign policy and advocated the expansion of the Triple Alliance into a permanent military alliance, which Great Britain should join. The diplomat was also opposed to the reinsurance treaty , as the treaty of the Mediterranean Entente contradicted it. Holstein saw Russia as the greatest threat to the German Empire and advocated a preemptive strike against the Tsarist Empire.

With the retirement of Bismarck and Herbert from the diplomatic service in March 1890, Holstein became an influential foreign politician in the German Empire . His administrative skills and many years of experience spoke in favor of the diplomat. Thanks to his good rapport with Philipp zu Eulenburg , the emperor's friend, and with Bernhard von Bülow , the diplomat was able to indirectly influence the decisions of Wilhelm II .

In the next few years Holstein dismantled Bismarck's alliance policy . In spring 1890 he turned against the continuation of the reinsurance treaty with Russia, which Caprivi and Wilhelm II originally wanted to extend. Holstein saw Great Britain as the ideal ally for the German Reich. For years he worked towards an alliance with the island kingdom. But without success. Great Britain resisted the German rapprochement. His plan for a continental league was not implemented. Holstein did not welcome the German expansion overseas, but neither did he veto the imperialist course of Wilhelm II.

With the conclusion of the entente cordiale between France and England in 1904, Holstein was faced with the ruins of his foreign policy. Since England had grown closer to the German hereditary enemy, it would be even more difficult to draw London to the German side. In addition, the naval issue put a strain on the German-English relationship.

Holstein planned to disrupt the understanding between France and Great Britain in the following years. The First Morocco Crisis and the Congress of Algeciras in 1906 offered an opportunity for this . Holstein's assessment - and that of Chancellor von Bülow: England would not support any French colonial plans in Morocco. But the two high-ranking politicians miscalculated. London assisted the French in Algeciras. The Anglo-French Entente held. Holstein drew the consequences: on April 14, he submitted his resignation in the futile hope that the Chancellor and Emperor would not consent.

Grave of Friedrich v. Holsteins at the Berlin Invalidenfriedhof (state 2013)

Friedrich von Holstein died in 1909, three years after leaving the Foreign Office. His body was buried in the Invalidenfriedhof in Berlin. His grave, which was leveled during the GDR era , was given a tombstone in 2009.

Contemporary rating

His sovereign knowledge of files, his phenomenal memory and his experience in personnel matters made him indispensable for four chancellors - Bismarck , Caprivi , Hohenlohe and Bülow - but he was not particularly liked. Bismarck called him the "man with the hyena eyes". In his memoirs, Wilhelm II later reported that Holstein's personality was "uncanny" to him. Wilhelm II also complained that, with the exception of his son Herbert , Bismarck had not built up any diplomatic offspring in the Foreign Office . Bismarck weighed on the Foreign Office like a stone in a garden: if you roll it to the side, only "worms" would come to light. Holstein's element was intrigue, a tendency on which his domestic power was based in part. He could hardly escape the lack of sympathy on the part of his business partners. He evidently retaliated himself in his own way by carefully keeping records of official misconduct and private misconduct by his colleagues and superiors, including Wilhelm II.

Personal

The reason for Holstein's turning away from and opposition to Bismarck in the 1880s is believed to be that Bismarck had incriminating material about a Holstein affair during his time at the Prussian legation in Washington, DC (1866/1867), that he had the pressure exerted with it however, due to the gradual weakening of its position, it could not be maintained permanently. The matter at hand related to Alice Mason Hooper , who had married the US Senator and famous foreign policy maker Charles Sumner in 1866 , but who separated from her husband after a year on suspicion of having him recalled Holstein Washington to be responsible.

Maximilian Harden's attacks against the Liebenberger Kreis around Philipp zu Eulenburg, which sparked the Harden-Eulenburg affair in 1906 , were possibly based on information from Holstein. Harden later publicly denounced Fritz von Holstein as being primarily responsible for the failures in German foreign policy after Bismarck's dismissal.

For decades, Holstein's address was Berlin SW 47, Großbeerenstraße 40. From the spartan apartment, a few meters from the foot of the Kreuzberg waterfall in Viktoriapark , he influenced the foreign policy of the empire as the Eminence of Gray after the deposition of Bismarck .

According to an inaccurate legend, the Holstein schnitzel is said to be named after him.

estate

Holstein remained a bachelor until the end of his life. Like Leo von Caprivi , he was close friends with the Salonnière Helene von Lebbin , which ran a political salon on Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin , in which mainly politicians and diplomats from the Foreign Office frequented. He bequeathed his main written estate to her, which she kept under lock and key and passed on to her banker friend Paul von Schwabach shortly before her death . Because of the explosive content, Schwabach initially spread the protective claim that he had burned the papers before the revolution.

This estate was published half a century later under the book title The Secret Papers of Friedrich von Holsteins (Göttingen 1956–1963).

Fonts

  • Helmuth Rogge (Hrsg.): Friedrich von Holstein: Life confession in letters to a woman. Ullstein, Berlin 1932.
  • Norman Rich , Max Henry Fisher (ed., German edition provided by Werner Frauendienst ): The secret papers of Friedrich von Holstein .
    • Volume 1: Memories and Political Memories . Musterschmidt, Göttingen / Berlin / Frankfurt 1956; 2nd revised edition Musterschmidt, Göttingen / Berlin / Frankfurt 1958.
    • Volume 2: Diary Pages . Musterschmidt, Göttingen / Berlin / Frankfurt 1957.
    • Volume 3: Correspondence [Part 1] (January 30, 1861– December 28, 1896) . Musterschmidt, Göttingen / Berlin / Frankfurt 1961.
    • Volume 4: Correspondence [Part 2] (January 10, 1897– May 8, 1909) . Musterschmidt, Göttingen / Berlin / Frankfurt 1963.

literature

  • Günter Richter:  Holstein, Friedrich von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , pp. 550-552 ( digitized version ).
  • Joachim von Kürenberg : Fritz von Holstein, the gray eminence. Verlag für Kulturpolitik, Berlin 1932; Reprint Universitas Deutsche Verlags-AG, Berlin 1934 (= Prussian history in individual representations. Volume 3); 8th revised edition Helmut Rauschenbach, Stollhamm / Berlin 1954 ( biographical novel ).
  • George WF Hallgarten : Fritz von Holstein's Secret. New light on the life story of the "Eminence Gray". In: Historical magazine . Volume 177, 1954, pp. 75-83, ISSN  0018-2613 .
  • Helmut Krausnick : Holstein's Secret Policy in the Bismarck Era 1886–1890. Shown primarily on the basis of unpublished files from the Viennese house, court and court. State Archives. Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg 1942 (also: Dissertation, Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin 1941).
  • Helmut Krausnick: Holstein and the German-English relationship from 1890 to 1901. In: International yearbook for history lessons. Volume 1, 1951, pp. 141-158.
  • Norman Rich : A remark about Friedrich von Holstein's stay in America. In: Historical magazine . Volume 186, 1958, pp. 80-86, ISSN  0018-2613 (reply to Hallgarten's theory that Holstein had a relationship with Sumner's wife) .
  • Norman Rich: Friedrich von Holstein. Politics and diplomacy in the era of Bismarck and Wilhelm II. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge / London 1965.
  • Günter Richter: Friedrich von Holstein. An employee of Bismarck. (= Historical Studies. H. 397) Matthiesen, Lübeck / Hamburg 1966, (At the same time: Dissertation, Free University Berlin 1966) ISBN 978-3-7868-1397-2 .
  • Günter Richter: Friedrich von Holstein. Politicians in the shadow of power. (= Personality and History. Volume 49) Musterschmidt, Göttingen / Zurich / Frankfurt 1969.
  • Robert K. Massie : The Bowls of Wrath. Great Britain, Germany and the approach of the First World War. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt 1993, ISBN 978-3-10-048907-4 .
  • Gerd Fesser : The man in the background. In: THE TIME. No. 20/2009 of May 7, 2009, page 84 ( digitized version ).
  • Gerd Fesser: "I will lead you to wonderful days!" The Wilhelmine Empire 1890–1918. Donat Verlag Bremen, 2009, ISBN 978-3-938275-55-9 .
  • Hans Fenske : Friedrich von Holstein. Foreign politicians with a sense of proportion. (= Friedrichsruher contributions . Volume 39) Otto von Bismarck Foundation, Friedrichsruh 2009, ISBN 978-3-933418-42-5 .
  • Hans Fenske: Friedrich von Holstein (1837-1909). The meritorious life of a Pomeranian. In: Baltic Studies . Volume 98 NF, 2012, ISSN  0067-3099 , pp. 109-130.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ G. Richter: Friedrich von Holstein. Politicians in the shadow of power. Göttingen u. a. 1969, p. 93.
  2. ^ G. Richter: Friedrich von Holstein. Politician in the Shadow of Power , Göttingen et al. 1969, pp. 28–29.
  3. ^ G. Richter: Friedrich von Holstein. Politicians in the shadow of power , Göttingen a. a. 1969, p. 35.
  4. ↑ K. Hildebrand: The past realm. German foreign policy from Bismarck to Hitler 1871–1945. Stuttgart 1995, p. 129
  5. ↑ Who toppled Holstein? , Article from September 27, 1963 on Zeit Online
  6. ↑ Announcement from the Invalidenfriedhof e. V. to the grave of Holstein
  7. ^ S. Fischer-Fabian: Herrliche Zeiten - The Germans and their empire. Vienna 2006 (reprint), pp. 212–215.
  8. ^ For example, in 1929 the author of the anonymously published book Gestalten around Hindenburg , 1929, p. 79, assumed that Schwabach had the papers and "thus the most important material for the political history of Wilhelm II and the assessment of the Chancellorships Caprivi, Hohenlohe and Bülow destroyed ”.
  9. ↑ The Man Bismarck Hated , August 4, 1961 article by Paul Sethe for Zeit Online
  10. ↑ THE PAPERS OF THE LORD OF HOLSTEIN , article of September 4, 1957 on Spiegel Online
  11. ↑ Holstein was not a demon , article from September 13, 1963 by Thomas Stalbuus on Zeit Online
personal data
SURNAME Holstein, Friedrich August von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Holstein, Fritz von; Holstein, Friedrich August Karl Ferdinand Julius von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH April 24, 1837
PLACE OF BIRTH Schwedt
DATE OF DEATH May 8, 1909
Place of death Berlin