Kühlmann, Richard von

Early Years and Education

Richard von Kühlmann is a representative of a family of Westphalian industrialists. His father, Otto von Kühlman, was a lawyer, served as CEO of the Anatolian Railway ( Chemins de Fer Ottomans d'Anatolie , CFOA) and was actively involved in Middle Eastern politics. Richard's mother is Baroness Anna von Redwitz-Schmelz, daughter of the poet Oscar von Redwitz . Kühlman's father was elevated to noble dignity on June 15 ^[1] 1892.

Richard von Kühlman spent his childhood in Constantinople , where he attended a German school. After graduation, he studied law at the University of Leipzig , Berlin and Munich . Having defended his doctoral dissertation, he was accepted into the diplomatic service and sent to St. Petersburg as the secretary of the mission, then was transferred to Tehran . In 1905, during the Tangier crisis, he served in a diplomatic mission in Tangier and attracted public attention as an accompanying person under Emperor Wilhelm II during the monarch’s trip to Morocco.

Diplomatic career

In 1908, Kühlmann was appointed adviser to the ambassador at the German Embassy in London , where he remained (with interruptions on business trips) until the outbreak of World War I. In October 1913, he was - in the "appendage" to the main work - appointed Secretary of State of the Imperial Colonial Office (Reichskolonialamtes). In this capacity he visited Angola , Sao Tome and Principe , Northern Rhodesia and Mozambique .

From August to October 1914 he worked at the German embassy in Stockholm . From there he was sent to Constantinople, where he organized the German News Bureau. From March 1915 to September 1916 he served as the German Ambassador to The Hague . This position was considered at that time one of the most important, since the country was needed as a "trachea" for the economic supply of Germany. Thanks to his active work, it was possible to stabilize the German-Dutch relations, which were worsened after the German invasion of Belgium. Then from September 1916 to August 1917 he was the German ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.

At the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

From August 5, 1917 to July 9, 1918, Kulman served as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and in this capacity was engaged in financial support for the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda , which, after the February Revolution in Russia, advocated Russia's immediate withdrawal from the war. In his letter to the representative of the Foreign Ministry at Stavka Lersner, written shortly after the October Revolution , Kulman outlined some aspects of the Mikst project. :

In the future, Kulman led the negotiations on the conclusion of the Brest Peace with Ukraine and the Brest Peace Treaty with Soviet Russia . At the same time, he rejected the proposal of General Erich Ludendorff on the state recognition of Livonia, Estonia and Georgia and the relocation of the eastern border, since this contradicted the peace treaty with Soviet Russia. The Minister believed that if Russia was deprived of full access to the Baltic Sea, then in the medium term this would lead to a new war between the countries. He perceived the ambitious plans of the German generals to expand expansion in the East with skepticism: "The worse they do in the West, the more they deal with them in the East." He was opposed to the idea of ​​the emperor and the supreme military command to resume hostilities in the east and eliminate Bolshevism, since he believed that Russia ceased to be a military threat to Germany.

In the summer of 1918, Kühlmann, a peace supporter, tried to begin secret negotiations with Sir William Tyrrel in the Netherlands to put an end to the war, which in his eyes could not be won. Emperor Wilhelm II , who was initially benevolent of this initiative, ultimately rejected this step under pressure from the High Command of the Army. After the minister’s speech in the Reichstag in June 1918, in which he cautiously doubted an exclusively military victory and proposed negotiations with the United Kingdom through negotiations, the High Command of the army forced him to resign.

Retired

After retiring from politics, he wrote books, ran an estate in Olsztadt, and represented the family interests of Stummov on several supervisory boards of steel companies. In 1928 he headed the German Cultural Association.

He also collected materials for his memoirs since 1932 and worked intensively on the book of memoirs in 1939-1940. Part of his personal archive was destroyed during the bombing of Berlin in November 1943. The manuscript was ready by September 1944, but in October of that year, he, like many political and state figures of the Kaiser era and the Weimar Republic , was arrested after the attempt on Hitler , and his archive was confiscated. Kulman's memoirs ultimately saw the light of day in 1948, after the death of the author.

• Keipert Maria (Red.) Biographisches Handbuch des deutschen Auswärtigen Dienstes 1871-1945 // Herausgegeben vom Auswärtigen Amt, Historischer Dienst. Band 2, Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger GK. - Schöningh, Paderborn ua 2005, ISBN 3-506-71841-X .

• Diplomatic dictionary