Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg
Theobald Theodor Friedrich Alfred von Bethmann Hollweg (29 November 1856 – 1 January 1921) was a German politician who was Chancellor of the German Empire from 1909 to 1917. He oversaw the German entry into World War I and played a key role during its first three years. He was replaced as chancellor in July 1917 due in large part to opposition to his moderate policies by leaders in the military.
In this German name, the surname is Bethmann Hollweg, not Hollweg.
Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg
29 November 1856
Hohenfinow, Kingdom of Prussia
1 January 1921 (aged 64)
Hohenfinow, Free State of Prussia, Weimar Republic
Between 1884 and 1899 Bethmann Hollweg rose rapidly through positions in the Prussian government, becoming the provincial governor of Brandenburg in 1899, Prussian minister of the interior in 1905, and Reich secretary of the interior in 1907. He also served briefly as a member of the Reichstag in 1890, an experience that left him unsympathetic to the party system and an independent for the remainder of his political life. He sought a "diagonal course" between left and right, opposing democratic egalitarianism but also breaking precedent as a Reich state secretary by meeting with trade unions.
Emperor Wilhelm II appointed Bethmann Hollweg Reich Chancellor in 1909, in part because he approved of his conciliatory political style. His eight years as Chancellor showed him to be cautiously supportive of some liberalization, such as reform of Prussia's three-class franchise, but also a firm believer that a parliamentary monarchy was the best form of government for Germany. Bethmann Hollweg angered conservatives when he granted a constitution to Alsace–Lorraine in 1911 and then was censured by the Reichstag's liberal parties in 1913 because of his support for the military during the Zabern Affair that agitated Alsace–Lorraine. Because he felt himself inexperienced in foreign affairs, he gave free rein to his foreign secretary, notably during the Second Morocco Crisis. He sought but was unable to reach accommodation with Great Britain over the naval arms race between the two empires.
During World War I, Bethmann Hollweg supported many of Germany's harsher policies, believing that Germany was so threatened that it needed to take all necessary measures to survive. His support of many of the policies was nevertheless reluctant and given only under pressure or because he saw that the majority was against him.
Immediately after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that led to the outbreak of the war, he hoped that it could be limited to the Balkans but assured Austria-Hungary of Germany's full backing and supported its aggressive demands against Serbia. He held back on German mobilization until after Russia's so that Germany would not appear to be the aggressor. Although he supported the invasion of Belgium as necessary given Germany's threatened position, he saw it from the first as an injustice that would need to be righted. He also backed the September Program that outlined German war aims, including territorial expansion that would have been primarily at the expense of Russia. Later in the war, however, he took a stance against annexations. In domestic politics, Bethmann Hollweg was the main force behind the Burgfriedenspolitik in the Reichstag, a political truce under which the parties agreed not to criticize the government and to approve war loans.
Bethmann Hollweg fought against the implementation of unrestricted submarine warfare but in the end bowed to pressure from the military and the conservatives in the Reichstag and approved its use. As the war progressed he initiated several peace proposals, none of which was considered acceptable by the Triple Entente. In early 1917 he spoke out in favor of a constitutional monarchy that would be a progressive, social "people's empire" and again pushed for electoral reform in Prussia. His words alienated many conservatives and supplied Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff with an opening to oust Bethmann Hollweg. Many who had hitherto supported him in parliament also felt that he had been in his position too long to be able to negotiate an acceptable peace. When both Ludendorff and Chief of the General Staff Paul von Hindenburg threatened to resign, Bethmann Hollweg submitted his own resignation to the Emperor.
In his Reflections on the World War that remained unfinished when he died in 1921, Bethmann Hollweg stressed Germany's difficult geographical position, admitted that the government and the Emperor had made mistakes leading up to the war and that Germany bore some of the guilt for it but that only a "common guilt" could have led to such a great catastrophe.
Early life and career[edit]
Family and education[edit]
Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg was born at Hohenfinow in Brandenburg, then part of the Kingdom of Prussia, the largest state within the German Empire. He was the son of Prussian official Felix von Bethmann Hollweg. His grandfather August von Bethmann-Hollweg had been a prominent law scholar, president of Frederick William University in Berlin and Prussian minister of culture. His great-grandfather Johann Jakob Hollweg had married a daughter of the wealthy Frankfurt am Main banking family of Bethmann.[1] His mother, Isabella de Rougemont, was a French Swiss and his grandmother Auguste Wilhelmine Gebser came from the Prussian noble family of Gebesee.
He was educated at the Schulpforta boarding school in the Prussian province of Saxony and studied law at the Universities of Strasbourg and Leipzig and at the Humboldt University of Berlin from 1875 to 1879.[2] He then served as a one-year volunteer in the military before entering on his career path.
Political legacy and historical assessment[edit]
None of Bethmann Hollweg's circle of friends achieved significant influence during the Weimar Republic. The only politician whose worldview was related to Bethmann Hollweg's was Gustav Stresemann. But it was he who, as a National Liberal member of the Reichstag, had railed against Bethmann Hollweg.
Adolf Hitler was hostile towards the Reich chancellor's personality in his book Mein Kampf. He lamented the "miserable attitude and weakness of this philosophizing weakling". He called his Reichstag speeches a "helpless stammering".[120] Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz condemned the "leaning of our intellectuals toward Western culture".[121]
Bethmann Hollweg's dealings with the Social Democrats influenced the course of the party's history. As a result of Burgfriedenspolitik, the SPD became "electable" for large sections of the middle classes and, as a people's party, was able to exert great influence on the constitution of the Weimar Republic as well as on that of the Federal Republic of Germany. According to historian Eberhard von Vietsch, the SPD's development into a bourgeois people's party to the left of center would have been more difficult without Bethmann Hollweg's initiative to integrate the SPD into the political system.[122]
Bethmann Hollweg's domestic opponents accused him of being a "defeatist" who wanted to cheat the "people of the fruits of victory" with a "rotten peace". The assessment was preserved by national parties in the Weimar Republic until it finally became official with the victory of the Nazi Party. After 1945 Bethmann Hollweg was considered a "chancellor without qualities", an "indecisive Hamlet who doubted himself".[117]
In Hohenfinow today, only the weathered and partially destroyed grave of the former Reich chancellor remains. He is the only Reich chancellor of the German Empire after whom no street was named.