Georg Klindworth

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Georg Klindworth (born April 16, 1798 in Göttingen , † January 1882 in a suburb of Paris ) was a German diplomat and secret agent who was in the service of several European statesmen and princes.

Live and act

Klindworth was the third child of a mechanic and watchmaker. Nothing is known about his youth. From 1814 (?) He studied philology at the University of Göttingen , where he received his doctorate in 1817.

From 1819 Klindworth initially worked as the private secretary of the Portuguese ambassador in Berlin. In the years 1821/22 he was then in Prussian service. As an agent provocateur , he tried to persuade the publisher Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus to publish a liberal-democratic article anonymously. The project failed and Klindworth had to leave Berlin. Three years later, in 1825, he was tutor for the children of a countess in Hildesheim. In 1827 he went to Braunschweig, where he entered the service of Duke Karl II of Braunschweig . There he was initially private secretary in the ducal cabinet and from September 1828 Legation Councilor for Foreign Affairs. In this role, he supported the Duke in a dispute with the Kingdom of Hanover, among other things .

In September 1830 Charles II was overthrown and fled to England. Klindworth, who acted as Councilor of State of Charles II, tried diplomatic channels to enable the Duke to return to Braunschweig. Increasing disputes had the consequence that Klindworth finally left the ducal services in March 1832 after he had separated from the duke for a short time in 1829 because of insufficient pay.

Klindworth now went to Paris and from 1832 entered the service of the French King Louis-Philippe I for several years , in whose secret cabinet he played an important role. In the 1840s he was entrusted with diplomatic missions and agent assignments by the Austrian statesman Metternich , the British Foreign Minister Lord Palmerston and other European princes and politicians. Sometimes he also worked as a double agent for several clients at the same time.

From 1848 he was in the service of King Wilhelm I of Württemberg until he dismissed him in 1852 for disloyalty. Klindworth now went from Stuttgart to Weimar. In the following years he was assigned various secret missions, for example by the Russian Tsar Nicholas I and his successor Tsar Alexander II. In January 1882 Klindworth died in a suburb of Paris.

Klindworth's (illegitimate?) Daughter Agnes Street-Klindworth (1825-1906) was a lover of the musician Franz Liszt , with whom she conducted extensive correspondence.

In the literature, Klindworth is characterized as an "important political secret agent of international stature" and as "a man of extraordinary ability, enterprise, amorality and ubiquity".

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Pauline Pocknell: Franz Liszt and Agnes Street-Klindworth. A Correspondence, 1854-1886 . Franz Liszt Studies Series No.8, Pendragon Press, Hillsdale 2001, S.XXIX; Dieter Lent: Klindworth, Johann Georg Heinrich . In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck, Günter Scheel (ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon: 19th and 20th centuries . Hahnsche Buchhandlung Verlag, Hannover 1996, p. 322.
  2. ↑ See Pauline Pocknell: Franz Liszt and Agnes Street-Klindworth. A Correspondence, 1854-1886 . Franz Liszt Studies Series No.8, Pendragon Press, Hillsdale 2001, S.XXIX f .; Dieter Lent: Klindworth, Johann Georg Heinrich . In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck, Günter Scheel (ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon: 19th and 20th centuries . Hahnsche Buchhandlung Verlag, Hannover 1996, p. 322.
  3. ↑ Cf. Dieter Lent: Klindworth, Johann Georg Heinrich . In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck, Günter Scheel (ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon: 19th and 20th centuries . Hahnsche Buchhandlung Verlag, Hannover 1996, p. 322.
  4. ↑ See Pauline Pocknell: Franz Liszt and Agnes Street-Klindworth. A Correspondence, 1854-1886 . Franz Liszt Studies Series No.8, Pendragon Press, Hillsdale 2001, pp. XXX-XXXIV; Dieter Lent: Klindworth, Johann Georg Heinrich . In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck, Günter Scheel (ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon: 19th and 20th centuries . Hahnsche Buchhandlung Verlag, Hannover 1996, p. 322.
  5. ↑ See Pauline Pocknell: Franz Liszt and Agnes Street-Klindworth. A Correspondence, 1854-1886 . Franz Liszt Studies Series No.8, Pendragon Press, Hillsdale 2001, S.XXXIV f.
  6. ↑ See Pauline Pocknell: Franz Liszt and Agnes Street-Klindworth. A Correspondence, 1854-1886 . Franz Liszt Studies Series No.8, Pendragon Press, Hillsdale 2001, pp. XXXV ff.
  7. ↑ See also Pauline Pocknell: Franz Liszt and Agnes Street-Klindworth. A Correspondence, 1854-1886 . Franz Liszt Studies Series No.8, Pendragon Press, Hillsdale 2001
  8. ↑ Cf. Dieter Lent: Klindworth, Johann Georg Heinrich . In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck, Günter Scheel (ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon: 19th and 20th centuries . Hahnsche Buchhandlung Verlag, Hannover 1996, p. 322.
  9. ↑ See Pauline Pocknell: Franz Liszt and Agnes Street-Klindworth. A Correspondence, 1854-1886 . Franz Liszt Studies Series No.8, Pendragon Press, Hillsdale 2001, S.XXX
personal data
SURNAME Klindworth, Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Klindworth, Johann Georg Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat and secret agent
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1798
PLACE OF BIRTH Goettingen
DATE OF DEATH January 1882
Place of death Suburb of Paris