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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.
Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg was a German imperial chancellor before and during World War I who possessed talents for administration but not for governing. A member of a Frankfurt banking family, Bethmann Hollweg studied law at Strassburg, Leipzig, and Berlin and entered the civil service.
Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg vertrat liberale Auffassungen und stand der Fortschrittlichen Volkspartei nahe. Er bemühte sich als überparteilicher Kanzler um einen Ausgleich zwischen Sozialdemokratie und Konservatismus ( Politik der Diagonalen, Burgfriedenspolitik ).
Bethmann was a career civil servant who became Imperial Germany’s fifth Reich Chancellor and took Germany into the First World War. Despite heading the imperial German political administration, his power was circumscribed by the role of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the army leadership.
Overview. Theobald Von Bethmann Hollweg. (b. 1856) Quick Reference. (b. Hohenfinow, 29 Nov. 1856; d. Hohenfinow, 1 Jan. 1921) German; German Chancellor 1909–17 Bethmann Hollweg was the son of a German landed estate owner whose family had produced a number of gifted lawyers, and a French Swiss officer's daughter.
Quick Reference. (b. 29 Nov. 1856, d. 2 Jan. 1921). Chancellor of Germany and Minister President of Prussia 1909–17 From 1899 the chief commissioner (Oberpräsident) of the Prussian province of Brandenburg, he became Prussian Minister of the Interior (1905) and German Secretary of State for Home Affairs (1907).
Often called the "Hamlet" of German politics, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg combined a legalistic and bureaucratic mind with inner doubt and misgiving. He was appointed Prussian minister of the interior in 1905 and German state secretary of the interior two years later.
