Paul von Hatzfeldt

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Paul von Hatzfeldt zu Wildenburg
1885, wood engraving

Melchior Hubert Paul Gustav Graf von Hatzfeldt zu Wildenburg (born October 8, 1831 in Düsseldorf , † November 22, 1901 in London ) was a German official in the foreign service .

Life

On October 8, 1831 Paul was born as the youngest child from the marriage between Countess Sophie von Hatzfeldt and Count Edmund von Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg. Not least because of the seclusion and the dispensable life in the ancestral territories of this Hatzfeld branch , Wissen-Schönstein and the nearby Crottorf Castle in the Wildenburger Land , Düsseldorf, in the immediate vicinity of which was the Calcum Castle , became the center of the life of the count's family. However, the young Paul accompanied his father during his stays in Crottorf and Schönstein . Like that of his siblings Alfred (1825–1911) and Melanie (1828–1911), his eventful youth was shaped by the disrupted family relationships. After the parents separated at the beginning of the 1830s, protracted disputes over Paul's custody followed ; In 1841, the father ordered admission to the cadet institute in Potsdam . In the meantime the mother obtained his early release; he grew up in the care of his mother. Through her he got to know Ferdinand Lassalle and the ideas of the labor movement . With Lassalle, Julius Wulff , Ferdinand Freiligrath , Louis Kugelmann and others, he was one of the protagonists of the People's Club in Düsseldorf in 1848 , a political association formed during the March Revolution , whose goal was a “social democracy” and a “red republic”. He later turned away from these views.

Paul von Hatzfeldt in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, Prussian headquarters in Versailles (second seated person from the right)

In April 1851, Paul passed his school leaving examination under tutors and studied law and political science in Berlin , which he completed in the summer of 1857 with the first state examination. As a trainee lawyer at the Berlin City Court , he met the later privy councilor Friedrich von Holstein , with whom he was to be a close friend throughout his life. After liberation from the second state examination Count Paul was - not least because of his relationship with Princess Augusta , the wife of the future Emperor I. Wilhelm - Attaché at the Royal Prussian Legation in Paris. There he married 17-year-old Helene Moulton, the daughter of a US landowner and real estate agent, in November 1863. The marriage resulted in a son and two daughters.

In May 1865, Hatzfeldt became a delegation secretary in Denmark ; three years later Otto von Bismarck appointed him to the Foreign Office . There he was promoted to Real Legation and Lecturing Council in the Political Department in 1869 . Due to his many years of activity in Paris and his perfect command of the French language, he made himself an indispensable assistant to the Chancellor during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 when he took part in the editing of the surrender negotiations before Sedan as his diplomatic adjutant ; Hatzfeldt co-signed the peace treaty of May 10, 1871.

Sommerberg Castle in Wiesbaden-Frauenstein , 2020

Hatzfeldt took over Hof Sommerberg in Wiesbaden-Frauenstein either by purchase in November 1871 or by inheritance in 1872 and converted it into a castle-like family seat with a park for the Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg family .

In the following years he took over the management of the political department as a secret legation councilor . Count Paul von Hatzfeldt was the German envoy in Madrid from 1874 ; there he had to assert himself under the difficult conditions during the Third Carlist War . Due to his friendly relationship with the Spanish King Alfonso XII. he paved the way for stable relations between the Spanish crown and the German Empire.

In 1878 Emperor Wilhelm I appointed him the first ambassador to the German Embassy in Constantinople ; as doyen of the diplomatic corps, he led the negotiations in the Greek-Turkish border disputes as a result of the Berlin treaty . His intercession made the excavations in Pergamon possible. In 1882 he was appointed State Secretary of the Foreign Office , as well as Prussian Plenipotentiary at the Federal Council . At the beginning of 1885 he led the negotiations at the Congo Conference as a German representative .

From October 1885 he became German ambassador in London, while retaining the rank of Minister of State; he quickly found recognition at the British court and established human and professional relationships with British Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury . He endeavored, in agreement with Bismarck, to bring England closer to the German Empire by bonding with the Austrian monarchy. The conclusion and design of the Mediterranean Agreement between England, Italy and Austria was largely due to his influence. After Bismarck's fall in March 1890, Hatzfeldt gained greater influence on German foreign policy through his longtime friend, Privy Councilor Holstein, with the aim of bringing about a rapprochement with England. In 1890 he negotiated the Helgoland-Sansibar Treaty with England , which the German Empire won over Heligoland ; In addition, he earned merit in 1899 when the Samoa Agreement came about .

Portrait before 1901

Due to his deteriorating health, he was only able to meet the high demands that the new course in German foreign policy placed on him in the period after the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. He found support from his son Paul (1867–1941), who had been an attaché from 1891 and in 1895 as third or second secretary at the German embassy in London. In 1901 he resigned at his own request. Ten days later he died in London on November 22, 1901. Edward VII , king since 1901, praised him as the “best representative of the German cause”.

The place Hatzfeldhafen in Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land in the German colony of German New Guinea was probably named after him.

swell

  • His war letters from the time of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870/71 have been preserved and published in book form by his wife: Count Paul Hatzfeldt: Hatzfelds Briefe . Letters from Count Paul Hatzfeld (former German ambassador in London, Madrid and Constantinople, Prussian Minister of State) to his wife. Written by King Wilhelm's headquarters 1870–71. Verlag Heinrich Schmidt & Carl Günther, Leipzig 1907.
  • Ambassador Paul Graf von Hatzfeldt, Nachged Papiere 1838–1901, Eds. Gerhard Ebel and Michael Behnen. 2 vols., Boppard 1976.

be right

“ The best horse in the diplomatic stable. "

- Otto von Bismarck

literature

  • Vera Niehus: An 'ambassadeur ideal', but “not up to the efforts of the ministerial service”: Paul von Hatzfeldt as Bismarck's foreign policy assistant . In: Lothar Gall , Ulrich Lappenküper (ed.): Bismarck's employees . Schöningh, Paderborn 2009, ISBN 978-3-506-76591-8 .
  • Franz-Eugen Volz: Paul Graf von Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg . In: Pictures of life from the Altenkirchen district . Altenkirchen, 1975.
  • Hans Philippi:  Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg, Paul Graf von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 8, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1969, ISBN 3-428-00189-3 , pp. 65-67 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Paul von Hatzfeldt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helmut Hirsch: Sophie von Hatzfeldt: in personal testimonies, time and image documents . Schwann, 1981, pp. 190-191.
  2. ↑ Otto Renkhoff: Nassauische Biographie: Short biographies from 13 centuries , Historical Commission for Nassau, 1992, p. 281, 1578–1579.
  3. ↑ cit. after Franz-Eugen Volz: Paul Graf von Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg . In: Pictures of life from the Altenkirchen district . Altenkirchen, 1975.
personal data
SURNAME Hatzfeldt, Paul von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hatzfeldt zu Wildenburg, Melchior Hubert Paul Gustav Graf von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German civil servant in the foreign service
DATE OF BIRTH October 8, 1831
PLACE OF BIRTH Dusseldorf
DATE OF DEATH November 22, 1901
Place of death London