Friedrich von Holstein

Friedrich August Karl Ferdinand Julius von Holstein (April 24, 1837 – May 8, 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.

Holstein was born in Schwedt, Province of Brandenburg on April 24, 1837, the son of a Prussian military officer. He studied jurisprudence at the Frederick William University of Berlin, from which he was graduated in 1856. Holstein joined the diplomatic service and in 1860 became an attaché at the Prussian embassy in Saint Petersburg under the authority of Otto von Bismarck and later served as a member of the legations at Rio de Janeiro, London, Washington, Florence, and Copenhagen. During his time at Washington, 1866–1867, his relationship with Alice Mason Hooper, wife of Senator Charles Sumner, led to Holstein's withdrawal and the divorce of the couple.

With the establishment of the German Empire in 1871, Holstein became secretary of the ambassador in Paris, Harry von Arnim. Von Arnim was a patroniser of the French royalists and a fierce opponent of Chancellor Bismarck, who finally enforced Arnim's discharge and conviction for breach of secrecy. Holstein returned to Berlin, where he assumed office as legation secretary in the Auswärtiges Amt in 1876, both an essential and a suspiciously eyed associate of Bismarck, who behind his back called him a "hyena". Holstein's career as an éminence grise was promoted by Bismarck's dismissal in 1890. The new chancellor, Leo von Caprivi, was ignorant of foreign affairs; and Holstein, as a repository of the Bismarckian tradition, became indispensable.

Holstein remained a bachelor all his life, regarded as a skillful though devious man. His reluctance to emerge into publicity has been ascribed to the part he had played under Bismarck in the Arnim scandal, which had made him powerful enemies; it was, however, possibly due to a shrinking from the responsibility of office. Yet the weakness of his position lay just in the fact that he was not ultimately responsible. He protested against the despatch of the Kruger telegram, but protested in vain. On the other hand, where his ideas were acceptable, he was generally able to realize them.

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