Karl von Wedel (governor)

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Karl von Wedel

Prince Karl Leo Julius von Wedel (until 1914: Graf von Wedel ; * February 5, 1842 in Easter castle ; † December 30, 1919 in Stockholm ) was a German military diplomat , Prussian cavalry general and ambassador . From 1907 to 1914 he was imperial governor in the realm of Alsace-Lorraine .

Life

He was the son of the Oldenburg Lieutenant General and Minister of State Count Friedrich Wilhelm von Wedel (1798–1872) from the von Wedel family and his wife Bertha Sophie Amalie Pauline nee von Glaubitz .

Wedel was in the service of the Kingdom of Hanover from 1859 to 1866 and joined the Prussian Army with the annexation . He took part in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 as an adjutant of the Hessian Cavalry Brigade . In 1874 he was appointed adjutant at the General Command of the VII Army Corps and in 1876 as a major at the General Staff . In this capacity he was the representative of the German Empire in the negotiations to draw the border between Bulgaria and Rumelia in 1885.

At the Russian-Turkish War 1877/78 took Wedel as military observers in the Russian headquarters in part. In November 1877 he was sent to the German embassy in Vienna as a military attaché and held this position until March 1887. During this time he was appointed wing adjutant to Emperor Wilhelm I in 1879 and promoted to colonel in 1886 .

After returning from Vienna Wedel received in 1887 the command of the 2nd Guard Lancers , 1888, the second and soon after the 1st Guards Cavalry Brigade . In 1889 he was appointed wing adjutant on duty by Kaiser Wilhelm II , promoted to major general in the same year and serving general à la suite . During this time Wedel was sent several times to various European courts in special matters and in 1891 he was assigned to the Foreign Office . There he felt, however, by his own admission, as “the fifth wheel on the car” and expected to be sent to an ambassadorial post soon.

In 1892 Karl von Wedel was promoted to lieutenant general and appointed adjutant general and, at the instigation of Philipp Eulenburg and Friedrich von Holstein, went to Stockholm as the German envoy , where he was supposed to mediate in the steadily escalating union conflict with Norway . In 1893 he organized the first trip to the north of Kaiser Wilhelm II on his new Kaiserjacht SMY Hohenzollern , which for diplomatic reasons, at Wedel's suggestion, did not go to the Norwegian coast, but to Sweden and visited Gotland , among other things . In 1894 Wedel married the prominent Swedish widow Stéphanie von Platen (1852-1937), a Countess Hamilton by birth from the Swedish branch line Hamilton af Hageby , and took temporary retirement . His successor was Hippolyt von Bray-Steinburg . Wedel's wife was considered one of the grande dames of the European upper class and was in the focus of the media all her life. In the years that the couple spent in Strasbourg from 1907 onwards, she became something of a motherland of Alsace.

In 1897 Graf von Wedel was reactivated, promoted to general of the cavalry and appointed governor of Berlin . In 1899 he was appointed ambassador to Rome and in 1902 to Vienna in the same capacity . There he supported Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau , who had been working at the Vienna embassy since 1901 , and became his mentor for many years. From 1907 he officiated as the successor of Prince Hermann zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg as the civil governor directly responsible to the emperor in the realm of Alsace-Lorraine . He gave up this post in April 1914 after the Zabern affair . Elevated to the rank of prince in 1914, Wedel went on special diplomatic missions to Vienna and Bucharest in 1914 and 1915. From 1916 he advocated a mutual agreement and against the intensified submarine war . In July 1916, Prince von Wedel became President of the government-affiliated German National Committee for an Honorable Peace , which opposed the annexationism of right-wing circles. As a result of the revolution in Germany , he moved with his wife to Sweden, where he lived at Stora Sundby Castle in Eskilstuna south of Stockholm and died the following year.

Awards

literature

  • Erhard Graf von Wedel (Ed.): Between Emperor and Chancellor. Notes from Adjutant General Count Carl von Wedel from the years 1890–1894. Leipzig 1943.
  • Karl Stählin: Wedel, Karl Leo Julius Prince of. In: German Biographical Yearbook. Transition Volume 2: 1917-1920. 1928.
  • Johannes Hürter (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871 - 1945. 5. T - Z, supplements. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 5: Bernd Isphording, Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2014, ISBN 978-3-506-71844-0 , p. 204 f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wedel, Karl Julius Leo Graf von , in: Militär-Wochenblatt No. 59 of May 8, 1909, pp. 1341–1342.
  2. ^ Tim Hadley: Military Diplomacy in the Dual Alliance: German Military Attaché Reporting from Vienna, 1906–1914. In: War In History. (WIH) 17, 2010, No. 3, pp. 294-312, ( doi : 10.1177 / 0968344510365421 ), here p. 302.
  3. ↑ a b Stefan Gammelien: Wilhelm II and Sweden-Norway from 1888 to 1905.. Scope and Limits of a Personal Regiment. BWV, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-8305-3122-7 , p. 197 and Note 140.
  4. ↑ Stefan Gammelien: Wilhelm II and Sweden-Norway from 1888 to 1905.. Berlin 2012, pp. 205–207.
  5. ↑ Stefan Gammelien: Wilhelm II and Sweden-Norway 1888-1905.. Berlin 2012, p. 232 a. Note 32.
  6. ↑ a b Märkligare dödsfall i Sverige 1937 (Remarkable Deaths 1937), in: H. E. Kjellberg (Ed. And edit.): Svenska Dagbladets Årsbok. Femtonde årgången (händelserna 1937) ( Svenska Dagbladet yearbook . Volume five: Events 1937), Stockholm 1938, pp. 252–278, here: p. 276 (Swedish; online at Project Runeberg ).
  7. ^ Klaus Schwabe : Brockdorff-Rantzau, Ulrich Graf von. In: Gerhard Hirschfeld , Gerd Krumeich , Irina Renz (eds.): Encyclopedia First World War. 2nd edition (UTB), Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2014, ISBN 978-3-8252-8551-7 , p. 392.
  8. ^ Karl Stählin: Wedel, Karl Leo Julius Fürst v. In: German Biographical Yearbook. Transition Volume 2: 1917-1920. 1928.
  9. ↑ Trude Maurer : "... and we also belong to it". University and ›Volksgemeinschaft‹ in the First World War. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-525-33603-8 , p. 576 f.
  10. ↑ List of dekorirten with Grand Ducal Hessian medals and decorations persons, Darmstadt 1875. S. 83rd
  11. ↑ Court and State Handbook of the Kingdom of Württemberg 1907. P. 49.
  12. ↑ Jean Schoos : The medals and decorations of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the former Duchy of Nassau in the past and present. Verlag der Sankt-Paulus Druckerei AG, Luxembourg 1990, ISBN 2-87963-048-7 , p. 342.
personal data
SURNAME Wedel, Karl von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wedel, Karl Leo Julius von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German military diplomat, imperial governor of Alsace-Lorraine
DATE OF BIRTH February 5, 1842
PLACE OF BIRTH Easter castle
DATE OF DEATH December 30, 1919
Place of death Stockholm