Karl Eugen von Hügel

Karl Eugen Freiherr von Hügel (born May 24, 1805 in Stuttgart ; † May 29, 1870 there ) was a diplomat and Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Württemberg .

Career

Karl Eugen Freiherr von Hügel was the second son of the later Lieutenant General and Minister of War Ernst Eugen von Hügel (* 1774, † 1849) from his second marriage to Wilhelmine, née Wilhelmine. Freiin Schott von Schottenstein . Hügel studied law and political science at the Georg August University of Göttingen , the Ruprecht Karls University of Heidelberg and the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen . In Göttingen he became a founder and member of the Corps Bado-Wirtembergia in 1825 . After graduating, he joined the Württemberg Foreign Ministry as an attaché, which was headed from 1824 to 1848 by Count Josef von Beroldingen .

From 1832, Hügel was legation secretary to the Württemberg ambassador in Paris , Count Mülinen, and remained in that position until 1840, at last with the title of chargé d'affaires. From October 22nd to December 31st, 1840, Hügel took part in the celebrations for the coronation of Wilhelm III in Amsterdam as the extraordinary plenipotentiary of King Wilhelm. (Netherlands) and his wife Sophie von Württemberg participated. As the successor to Count Mandelsloh, Hügel went to London in 1840 , where he became head of the Württemberg legation with the title of Privy Legation Councilor. From April 4 to July 20, 1843, the heir to the throne of Württemberg, Crown Prince Karl , came to London to see the state of industrialization in England, and Hügel accompanied him from April 6 to June 14, 1845 the heir to the throne on his “great cavalier tour” to Vienna , Ofen , Prague , Dresden , Berlin and Altenburg . In Vienna they met for talks with State Chancellor Metternich . When the longtime Foreign Minister Beroldingen resigned in the revolutionary year of 1848, Hügel was recalled as envoy from London on July 10, 1848.

In 1849 he withdrew into private life for some time and stayed on the estates of his Russian wife in the Rjäsan department south of Moscow , far away from the turbulent political and military events in Germany that culminated in the suppression of the Baden Revolution in the summer of 1849. On February 6, 1850, Huegel took office as the Württemberg ambassador in Berlin . From August 31, 1852 to October 1855, Hügel was the Württemberg ambassador in Vienna. His time in Vienna was dominated by the political effects of the Crimean War . While Württemberg pursued a strict neutrality, the Austrian Empire approached the camp of the Western Allies in Paris and London and thus snubbed the government of the Russian Empire in Saint Petersburg . Hügel was so outraged by Foreign Minister Buol about Austrian politics that from then on he was considered a “persona non grata” in the Vienna State Chancellery on Ballhausplatz. On October 29, 1855, Hügel became the new Württemberg Foreign Minister and Minister of the Royal House in the Linden Ministry . In the fall of 1857, Hügel played a key role in the organization and implementation of the two emperor's meeting in Stuttgart. The meeting took advantage of Emperor Napoleon III. - unintentionally by Stuttgart - ultimately to be able to proceed against Austria in the Sardinian war without having to fear an intervention by Russia. In the years that followed, Hügel's policy was determined by a close relationship with Austria and by the endeavor, in response to the German question, to reform the federation that had existed since 1815 so that it could have continued to exist in the long term. In August 1859, Hügel visited his ministerial colleagues Beust in Dresden and Pfordten in Munich to discuss a federal reform and a Federal War Constitution, which should guarantee the states of Third Germany an appropriate political say. For this purpose , the medium- sized states met in Frankfurt on October 20, 1859, and in Würzburg from November 24 to 27, 1859 .

In addition to the demand for a federal court, the standardization of the law as well as weights and measures in the federal government were on the agenda. Hill also played a leading role in bringing about the Würzburg military conference of the medium-sized states on July 30, 1860. The aim was to divide the authority over the federal contingents between Austria, Prussia and the middle states. The Kingdom of Prussia rejected all reform proposals. In September 1861, Beust and Huegel went on a trip to Switzerland to find out about the constitution there and then wrote a memorandum on the German question. He also had a lively exchange of ideas with his Swabian compatriot, the Austrian Foreign Minister Rechberg , and also maintained a friendly relationship with the Hessian Prime Minister Dalwigk . From 1862 Bismarck was the Prussian head of government, who deliberately prevented any reform of the German Confederation. When the Vienna reform program was presented at the Frankfurt Fürstentag in 1863, which was also supported by Hügel, Prussia rejected it. Hill was no longer able to influence further political developments, especially in the wake of the upcoming German wars of unification .

On June 25, 1864 died King William and on 21 September 1864, the new replaced King Charles the Ministry Linden by the Ministry Varnbiiler . With this, Huegel's activity as head of the Foreign Ministry in Stuttgart ended a few years before the end of the state independence of Württemberg, the preservation of which he had directed all his political work.

Private life

Hill was Protestant and married the daughter of a Russian boyar family, Alexandra Michailowna Wereschagina (* 1820), in Paris in 1837. The marriage resulted in a son and several daughters. His eldest daughter Elisabeth (* 1838; † 1894) married the baron Richard König von und zu Warthausen . Huegel's only son, Ernst Eugen von Huegel, died on September 1, 1866 of the severe wounds he had suffered during a battle with Prussian troops near Tauberbischofsheim .

Honors

• As a minister, Hügel used the title "Excellence"
• Hill was the royal Wuerttemberg chamberlain
• 1852 Grand Cross of the Order of Frederick
• 1861 Grand Cross of the Order of the Württemberg Crown
• Polish-Russian Order of the White Eagle
• First class of the Russian Order of Saint Anne
• First class of the Royal Prussian Order of the Red Eagle
• Grand Cross in diamonds of the Papal Order of Pius
• Grand Cross of the Luxembourg Order of the Oak Crown
• Grand Cross of the Baden Order of the Zähringer Lion
• Grand Cross of the Austrian Imperial Leopold Order
• Grand Cross of the Hessian House and Merit Order of Philip the Magnanimous
• Grand Officer of the Imperial French Legion of Honor
• Commander of the Civil Merit Order of the Dutch Lion

literature

• Wilhelm Freiherr von Koenig-Warthausen: Karl Eugen Freiherr von Hügel. In: Max Miller and Robert Uhland (eds.) Life pictures from Swabia and Franconia Volume 9, W. Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart 1963, pp. 302–333

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kösener corps lists 1910, 60/1.
2. ^ Horst Bernhardi: Corps Bado-Württembergia zu Göttingen 1824 to 1829 . Once and Now, yearbook of the Association for Corps Student History Research, special issue 1960, pp. 28–35, here p. 34
3. ↑ Königlich-Württembergisches Hof- und Staats-Handbuch 1862, p. 56
4. ↑ Königlich-Württembergisches Hof- und Staats-Handbuch 1862, p. 31
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Königlich-Württembergisches Hof- und Staats-Handbuch 1862, p. 110

predecessor	Office	successor
Karl August von Mandelsloh	Wuerttemberg envoy in London 1841–1848	-
Ludwig von Reinhard	Wuerttemberg envoy in Berlin 1850–1852	Franz à Paula von Linden
Franz à Paula von Linden	Wuerttemberg envoy in Vienna 1852–1855	Adolf von Ow-Wachendorf
Joseph von Linden	Württemberg Foreign Minister 1855–1864	Karl von Varnbuler