Background
He was born at Hohenfinow, Germany, on November 29, 1856.
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book
Reflections on the World War
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Sechs Kriegsreden des Reichskanzlers (German Edition)
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
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Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg
Edit ProfileEducation
He was educated at the boarding school of Schulpforta and at the Universities of Strasbourg, Leipzig and Berlin.
Career
After successive government appointments, he became Prussian minister of the interior in 1905. In 1907 he was made secretary of state for the imperial ministry of the interior, and in 1909 succeeded Prince Bernhard von BülowBulow as chancellor. Bethmann-Hollweg was not an agrarian Junker but a Free Conservative who was convinced of the necessity of reform; however, he was philosophical, intellectual, ponderous, and utterly lacking in any sense of humor. He began by compromising with the Catholic Party, and put into effect a new and more liberal constitution for Alsace-Lorraine. He was unsuccessful in dealing with the problem of suffrage in 1910. In 1913 a young Prussian officer struck a shoemaker of Zabern in Alsace with his sword, and in the ensuing national scandal the Chancellor was censured in the Reichstag. World War I was the child of German foreign policy, which Bethmann-Hollweg had never controlled; yet, at its outbreak, he spoke to the British ambassador of the guarantee of Belgium's neutrality as "a scrap of paper. " He was opposed to unrestricted submarine warfare because he was certain that it would bring the United States into the war, but his views were little heeded. In 1917, because of the opposition of the Reichstag and the interference of Field Marshals von Hindenburg and Ludendorff, Bethmann-Hollweg resigned. He wrote Reflections on the World War (1919). He died at Hohenfinow, January 1, 1921.
Works
book
-
Sechs Kriegsreden des Reichskanzlers (German Edition)
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
- Reflections on the World War
-
Sechs Kriegsreden des Reichskanzlers (German Edition)
Politics
Bethmann’s domestic policies were mildly liberal for their time and place, but he almost invariably yielded to persons more extreme and more forceful than himself. In foreign policy, his negotiations with the British over reduction of naval armaments (March 1909 and February 1912) came to nothing because of the opposition of German admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, supported by William II (Kaiser [emperor] Wilhelm II). Bethmann’s secretary of state, Alfred von Kiderlen-Wächter, created the Moroccan (Agadir) crisis (see Moroccan crises) of July–November 1911, in which Germany backed down before France and Great Britain. Bethmann and Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary, worked successfully to prevent the expansion of the Balkan Wars into a major conflict between Austria-Hungary and Russia; this was probably Bethmann’s greatest success in foreign affairs
References
- Germany and the Approach of War in 1914 (Making of the Twentieth Century)
- Geschichtswissenschaftliche Klärung der Begriffe Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg und Reichshofrat (German Edition)
- Bethmann Hollweg : der Kanzler ohne Eigenschaften?: Urteile der Geschichtsschreibung ; eine kritische Bibliographie
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Born
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Died
January 1, 1921 (aged 64) -
Nationality
German -
Religion
Catholic -
Political Party
Catholic Party