Johann Heinrich Count von Bernstroff was a German politician and the ambassador to the United States from 1908 to 1917.
Background
Johann Bernstroff was born in London on November 14, 1862, into an ancient noble family from Mecklenburg dating from around 1300; his father at the time was Prussian envoy to the Court of St. James's, having only recently relinquished the post of foreign minister to Otto von Bismarck.
Career
Bernstorff initially pursued an officer career in the prestigious guards, but in 1890, transferred to the diplomatic corps. He served at Constantinople, Belgrade. Dresden. St. Petersburg, Munich, and London, before being despatched to Cairo in 1906 as consul general. Bernstorff generally preferred an understanding with Britain over the much heralded Russian connection. In 1908 Wilhelm II personally picked Bernstorff as ambassador to the United States where he was to remain for the next nine years. An intelligent and elegant man, Bemstorff 's charm and candor quickly brought him acceptance in Washington. D.C.
Bemstorff grew pessimistic about the outcome of the war early, during the battle of the Marne in September 1914, and he embraced the notion of a compromise peace. This, in turn, brought him closer to President Woodrow Wilson, Colonel Edward House, and Secretary of State Robert Lansing, especially on the matter of unrestricted submarine warfare. The German diplomat did not share his navy's wild optimism for this weapon, and he repeatedly warned the Foreign Office that its adoption would bring the United States into the war. Germany's several flirtations with U-boat warfare in 1915-16 greatly exacerbated Bernstorf; the sinking of the liners Lusitania and Arabic in 1915 and Sussex in 1916 strained his relations with American leaders. Similarly, the quixotic German sabotage plans, which led to the expulsion of the military and naval attachés in the United States (Franz von Papen and Karl Boy-Ed) in December 1915, did not facilitate the ambassador's already difficult position.
Bernstorff contributed little to the German peace offer of December 12, 1916, and the decision reached at Pless on January 9, 1917, to resume unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1 regardless of the consequences finally brought his career in Washington to the abyss. The envoy's warnings about the impending American action were dismissed by Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg rather curtly on January 16: "I am well aware that with this step we are running in danger of . . . war with the United States. We are decided to accept this risk.'' On April 6, 1917, the United States declared war against Germany.
Berstorff's return in March 1917 was anything but triumphal. He was viciously denounced by the Pan-Germans as well as by General Erich Ludendorff and his military paladins as a "democrat" and a "defeatist"; Wilhelm II boorishly refused to receive his ambassador. From September 1917 to the end of the war, Bernstorff served as envoy to Constantinople. During the November revolution of 1918, he supported Prince Max von Baden's efforts to reach a rapprochement with the Social Democrats, but in 1919 he declined Friedrich Ebert's offer of the post of foreign minister and instead retired from the diplomatic corps.
Bernstorff then turned to politics, joining the Democratic party and becoming after 1921 a parliamentary deputy for the party of Albert Einstein. A fervent supporter of the League of Nations and of Germany's entry into that world body, Bernstorff was deeply disappointed by the National Socialists' assumption of power in January 1933 and chose exile in Switzerland. He died in Geneva on October 6,1939.