Albrecht Giese

Albrecht Giese (February 10, 1524 – August 1, 1580) was a councilman and diplomat of the city of Danzig (Gdańsk).

Giese was born in Danzig, Royal Prussia, Poland, to the influential and wealthy merchant Patrician family Giese. His relatives were the bishop Tiedemann Giese, and the merchant Georg Giese, who also worked in the Hanse base in London, the Steelyard.

Albrecht studied at the Universities of Greifswald, Wittenberg and Heidelberg. As was the custom of the time for Hanseatic merchants, he toured Europe for several years to learn different languages after his formal studies, as was necessary for a long-distance trader. In the meantime, Giese had married in Danzig and returned there from his travels in 1564 and became a councilman. Over the next six years, he took part as a city delegate at several Hanse meetings in Lübeck.

Open conflict between the Polish king and the city council broke out when the city council was arrested for opposing the loss of certain privileges according to the terms of the Union of Lublin. Negotiations between the city and the king took place in 1568/69, initially at Piotrków Trybunalski. Giese was a member of a delegation, led by the mayor of the city, Johann Brandes in negotiations. Despite being subjected to severe pressure and incarceration for a year at Kraków, the delegation refused to submit to the king's terms, and Giese and Councilor Georg Kleefeld were eventually released in 1570 against a ransom of 100,000 guilders.

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