Ludwig von Flotow

Ludwig Freiherr von Flotow

Ludwig Freiherr von Flotow (born November 17, 1867 in Vienna ; † April 6, 1948 in Gmunden ; from April 3, 1919 Ludwig Flotow ) was a diplomat in Austria-Hungary and from November 1918 the last liquidating foreign minister of the then no longer existing dual monarchy.

family

Ludwig von Flotow comes from the documented since 1241 proven family Flotow . His parents were the royal Bavarian chamberlain and colonel Ludwig von Flotow (1821–1876) and his wife Maria (1840–1921) from the Bohemian count family Bubna and Lititz. His grandfather Georg Friedrich von Flotow (1786–1876) was a royal Bavarian chamberlain and general and on January 4, 1829 was elevated to the status of Bavarian baron.

Von Flotow was married to Maximiliane (1896-1937), née Countess von Matuschka , Freiin von Greiffenclau zu Vollrads (castle in the Hessian Rheingau), Freiin von Toppolczan (castle ruins in western Slovakia, previously the Kingdom of Hungary ) and Spaetgen. The couple had two sons, Ludwig-Alexander (* 1928) and Gereon-Paul (* 1930).

education and profession

Flotow studied law and was on 14 August 1894 in Graz to Dr. jur. PhD . In May 1895 he passed the diplomatic examination and embarked on a diplomatic career. After a number of different assignments, he was appointed Legation Councilor II class in 1906 . In 1909 he was appointed Legation Councilor 1st class.

On November 13, 1913, he was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary and transferred to the Foreign Ministry in Vienna . There he was head of the first department of the political section of the ministry, later first head of section.

Kuk Minister of Foreign Affairs

From January 4, 1917 to June 21, 1918 he was Deputy Foreign Minister. From November 2 to 11, 1918, at the suggestion of his predecessor Gyula Andrássy the Younger, Emperor Charles I appointed him to the ( liquidating ) Foreign Minister of Austria-Hungary . Since Hungary had terminated the real union with Austria on October 31, 1918, Flotow's task was only to liquidate the embassies, embassies and consulates abroad and the Ministry in Vienna. On October 30, 1918, German Austria appointed Viktor Adler as the first "Foreign Minister" (job title: State Secretary for Foreign Affairs ).

The ministry was officially named the Ministry of the Imperial and Royal Houses and Foreign Affairs. For the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty , however, Flotow could do nothing more: Hungary had made itself completely independent; In Austria, Prime Minister Heinrich Lammasch advised the Kaiser in the last days of his government.

Head of the Liquidating Ministry

The day after Charles I resigned from the government, the German-Austrian Provisional National Assembly passed a law on November 12, 1918, to dissolve the kuk and kk ministries. At that time, the Ministry was subordinate to four embassies ( Berlin , Constantinople , Madrid , Vatican ), eleven embassies and numerous consulates abroad.

With the approval of the (German) Austrian government, Flotow continued to work under the title of Head of the Liquidating Ministry of Foreign Affairs until November 1920 in order to dissolve the previous organization, but had no more political agendas. He was also responsible for the promotions and retirement of the remaining staff (initially 25 civil servants in Vienna alone), which the government took note of with approval on May 13, 1919.

He was subordinate to the (German) Austrian State Office for Foreign Affairs and had to work together with the so-called "interstate liquidation organization", consisting of representatives of the successor states of the dual monarchy, until the end of 1919. The (peace) treaty of Saint-Germain , which was signed by Austria and the victorious states of the First World War in September 1919, made Austria largely solely responsible for the task. Therefore, on December 18, 1919, Flotow was instructed to conduct the liquidation process from now on as an “inner-Austrian matter”. The allocation of costs for the liquidation to the successor states was now reserved for bilateral negotiations.

In parallel to Flotow's activity, the successor states had started to set up their own foreign office structures in November 1918 and took on around half of the staff from the Austro-Hungarian diplomatic service, in which 428 concept officials were employed in November 1918. 108 were taken over in the Austrian, 75 in the Hungarian, 16 in the Polish, 10 in the Czechoslovak, two in the Romanian and one in the Italian service, the SHS state did not take over any.

The liquidating Foreign Ministry represented the interests of each successor state to the Danube Monarchy until the state in question had set up its own representations. However, there were a number of states with which the successor states had not yet established official relations - or vice versa. The Austro-Hungarian representations continued to serve there for some time, in most cases by the end of November 1918 at the latest. The last former Austro-Hungarian representations were those at the Holy See until January 31, 1920, in Brazil until May 27, 1920. He officiated in Switzerland the representation last until October 31, 1920 only for Hungary, since Switzerland had already recognized the Republic of Austria on January 9, 1920 , but Hungary only on October 9, 1920.

On November 8, 1920, the liquidation of the Foreign Ministry was completed and Ludwig Flotow sent his letter of resignation to Michael Mayr , Foreign Minister of the Republic of Austria. On April 8, 1922 Flotow was officially accepted into the Federal Service of the Republic and retired in the same month.

Works

• November 1918 on the Ballhausplatz. Memories of Ludwig Freiherr von Flotow, the last head of the Austrian-Hungarian Foreign Service 1895–1920. Editing and edited by Erwin Matsch. Böhlau, Graz 1982, ISBN 3-205-07190-5 . ( Excerpt from Google Books ).

literature

• Erwin Matsch: The Foreign Service of Austria (-Hungary) 1720–1920. 1986, ISBN 3-205-07269-3 . ( Excerpt from Google Books ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} See Nobility Repeal Act of April 3, 1919.
2. ^ Erwin Matsch: The Foreign Service of Austria (-Hungary) 1720-1920. 1986, ISBN 3-205-07269-3 , p. 169.

Web links

• Ludwig von Flotow's estate in the house, court and state archives in Vienna

predecessor	Office	successor
Gyula Andrássy the Younger	kuk Foreign Minister 2. – 11. Nov. 1918	-