Friedrich Karl Akel

Friedrich Akel (around 1930)

Akel (back, center) with the Lithuanian Foreign Minister Stasys Lozoraitis (left) and the Latvian Foreign Minister Vilhelms Munters (right) in Tallinn (December 1937)

Friedrich Akel (* August 24 ^{. Jul} / 5. September  1871 ^greg. In the municipality Kaubi, parish Halliste , County Viljandimaa , † 3. July 1941 in Tallinn ) was an Estonian politician and diplomat. In 1924 he was the head of state of the Republic of Estonia .

education

Friedrich Karl Akel was born as the only common child of Juhan Akel and his wife Kärt Akel (née Risso) on Gut Kaubi. Akel went to elementary school from 1881 to 1883 and to Viljandi County School from 1883 to 1887 . From 1889 to 1892 he attended the Alexander Gymnasium in Tartu and studied medicine at the University of Tartu from 1892 to 1897 . In 1897/98 he was a lecturer at the Polyclinic of the University of Tartu and completed specialist training as an ophthalmologist in Riga in 1898/99 and 1901/02 . Further training courses took him to Berlin , Prague and Leipzig . In 1904/05 he was drafted as a doctor in the Russo-Japanese War . From 1902 to 1922 he worked as an ophthalmologist in Tallinn. In 1912 he founded his own eye clinic.

Politician

Akels began early on in social, church and political engagement as a member of numerous associations and on the Tallinn City Council, of which he was chairman from 1913 to 1917.

After the founding of the Republic of Estonia, Akel devoted himself to diplomacy. In 1922/23 he was the Estonian envoy to Finland , 1928 to 1933 in Sweden (also responsible for Denmark and Norway ) and from 1934 to 1936 in Germany (also responsible for the Netherlands ). He was Estonian Foreign Minister in 1923/24, 1926/27 and from 1936 to 1938.

Akel was also a long-time member of the Estonian Parliament ( Riigikogu ). From March 26 to December 16, 1924, he was the state elder and thus head of state of the Republic of Estonia. During his tenure, he survived the attempted communist coup on December 1, 1924 , which he had put down with the help of the military and the police.

From 1928 to 1932, Friedrich Karl Akel was the first Estonian member of the International Olympic Committee .

arrest

After the occupation of Estonia by the Soviet Union , Friedrich Karl Akel was arrested by the NKVD on October 17, 1940 and shot in Tallinn on July 3, 1941. His grave is unknown.

Since 1906 Friedrich Karl Akel was married to Adele Karoline Tenz. She was deported by the Soviet occupying forces on June 14, 1941 and died in 1944.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Entry in the baptismal register of the Hallist community (Estonian: Halliste kogudus)