thumb|360px|Holstein at the Foreign Office, 1906

Friedrich August Karl Ferdinand Julius von Holstein (24 April 1837 – 8 May 1909) was a civil servant of the German Empire and served as the head of the political department of the German Foreign Office for more than thirty years. He played a major role in shaping foreign policy after Bismarck was dismissed in 1890.

Biography

Holstein was born in Schwedt, Province of Brandenburg on 24 April 1837, Holstein wrote that thanks to advisors like Eulenburg Wilhelm was behaving like an absolute monarch who at the current rate would be "far more of an autocrat" than the Russian emperor, and that if things continued on their current course Germany would to have become either a dictatorship or a republic because the current system was "an operetta government, but not one that a European people at the end of the nineteenth century will put up with". Holstein wrote he wanted "a moderate use of a practicable system of constitutional co-operative government, which with the exceptions of St. Petersburg and Constantinople, is in operation in the rest of the European and civilised world". Holstein accused Eulenburg of believing "instinctively...to an autocratic regime no matter whether it be Russian patriarchal or despotisme éclairé on the French model" and that "every political, military and legal question is best decided directly by the Kaiser". Holstein ended his letter with the warning: "See to it that world history does not some day picture you as the evil spirit who was at the side of the imperial traveler when he chose the false path". In response, Eulenburg wrote to Holstein a mystical letter saying: "I am convinced that the Guiding Hand of Providence lies behind this elemental and natural drive of the Kaiser's to direct the affairs of the Kingdom in person. Whether it will ruin us or save us I cannot say. But I find it difficult to believe in the decline of Prussia's star".

Friedrich von Holstein was portrayed by actor Frederick Jaeger in the 1974 TV series Fall of Eagles.

Honours

  • Commander of the Imperial Austrian Order of Franz Joseph, with Star, 1878

References

Bibliography

  • Robert K. Massie, Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War He is the subject of Chapter 6, "The Monster of the Labyrinth."
  • T. G. Otte, "Great Britain, Germany, and the Far-Eastern Crisis of 1897-8," English Historical Review (1995) 110#439 pp. 1157–1179 in JSTOR

Primary sources

  • The Holstein Papers. Vol. I. Memoirs and Political Observations, edited by Norman Rich and M. H. Fisher (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1955); The Holstein Papers. Vol. 3 (1961)
  • Volume 2: Diaries vol 2 Diaries online
  • Review by J. C. G. Röhl, "Review: Friedrich von Holstein," Historical Journal, Sept 1966, Vol. 9 Issue 3, pp 379–388 online