- Bernhard Ernst von Bülow
Bernhard Ernst von Bülow (
2 August 1815 –20 October 1879 ) was a Danish and German statesman.He was the son of Adolf von Bülow, a Danish official, and was born at Cismar in
Holstein . He studied law at the universities of Berlin, Göttingen and Kiel, and began his political career in the service ofDenmark , in the chancery ofSchleswig-Holstein -Lauenburg atCopenhagen , and afterwards in the foreign office. In 1842 he became councillor of legation, and in 1847 Danish "charge d'affaires " in the Hanse towns, where his intercourse with the merchant princes led to his marriage in 1848 with a wealthy heiress, Louise Victorine Rücker.When the insurrection broke out in the
Elbe duchies (1848) he left the Danish service, and offered his services to the provisional government ofKiel , an offer that was not accepted. In 1849, accordingly, he re-entered the service of Denmark, was appointed a royal chamberlain and in 1850 sent to represent the duchies ofSchleswig andHolstein at the restored federal diet ofFrankfurt . Here he came into intimate touch with Bismarck, who admired his statesmanlike handling of the growing complications of theSchleswig-Holstein Question . With the radicalEider-Dane party he was utterly out of sympathy; and when, in 1862, this party gained the upper hand, he was recalled from Frankfurt. He now entered the service of the Grand-duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and remained at the head of the grand-ducal government until 1867, when he becameplenipotentiary for the two Mecklenburg duchies in the council of theGerman Confederation (Bundesrat), where he distinguished himself by his successful defence of the medieval constitution of the duchies against Liberal attacks.In 1873 Bismarck, who was in thorough sympathy with his views, persuaded him to enter the service of
Prussia as secretary of state for foreign affairs, and from this time until his death he was the chancellor's most faithful henchman. In 1875 he was appointed Prussian plenipotentiary in the Bundesrat; in 1877 he became Bismarck's lieutenant in the secretaryship for foreign affairs of the Empire; and in 1878 he was, with Bismarck and Hohenlohe, Prussian plenipotentiary at thecongress of Berlin . He died at Frankfurt on20 October 1879 , his end being hastened by his exertions in connection with the political crisis of that year. Of his six sons the eldest, Bernhard Heinrich Karl, became chancellor of the Empire.References
*1911
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