Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg

Theobald Theodor Friedrich Alfred von Bethmann Hollweg (29 November 1856 – 1 January 1921) was a German politician and statesman who served as Chancellor of the German Empire from 1909 to 1917.

Biography

Origins

Bethmann Hollweg was born in Hohenfinow, Brandenburg, the son of Prussian official Felix von Bethmann Hollweg. His grandfather was August von Bethmann Hollweg, who had been a prominent law scholar, president of Frederick William University in Berlin, and Prussian Minister of Culture. His great-grandfather was Johann Jakob Hollweg, who had married a daughter of the wealthy Frankfurt am Main banking family of Bethmann, founded in 1748.

Cosima Wagner was a relative on the Bethmann side, and his mother Isabella de Rougemont was a French Swiss.

Early life

He was educated at the boarding school of Schulpforta and at the Universities of Strasbourg, Leipzig and Berlin. Entering the Prussian administrative service in 1882, Bethmann Hollweg rose to the position of the President of the Province of Brandenburg in 1899. In 1889 he married Martha von Pfuel, niece of Ernst von Pfuel, Prime Minister of Prussia. From 1905 to 1907 Bethmann Hollweg served as Prussian Minister of the Interior, then as Imperial State Secretary for the Interior from 1907 to 1909. On the resignation of Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow in 1909, Bethmann Hollweg was appointed to succeed him.