Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg
Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg and Hertefeld, Count of Sandels was a diplomat of the German Empire who achieved considerable influence as close friend of Wilhelm II, German Emperor. On 1 January 1900, the Emperor created the then count an hereditary prince .
He was the central member of the, a group of artistically minded aristocrats within the entourage of Wilhelm II. Eulenburg played an important role in the rise of Bernhard von Bülow, but fell from power in 1907 due to a sexual scandal.
Early life and education
Eulenburg was born at Königsberg, Province of Prussia, the eldest son of Philipp Konrad, Count zu Eulenburg and his wife, Baroness Alexandrine von Rothkirch und Panthen. The Eulenburgs were a Junker family which belonged to Germany's Uradel class as they were first recorded as Ministeriales of Saxony in the service of the Margraves of Meissen in 1181, they acquired lordships in Meissen, Bohemia and Lusatia before migrating to Prussia in the 14th century, there being recognized as Barons in 1709 and Counts by 1786. For generations the family had served the House of Hohenzollern; Philipp's uncle Friedrich Albrecht zu Eulenburg served as Interior Minister of Prussia, as did his cousin Botho zu Eulenburg. The Eulenburgs, though "Junkers", were impoverished aristocracy and until 1867 depended entirely upon Philipp von Eulenburg's salary as a captain in the Prussian Army. In 1867 Baron Karl von Hertefeld died without any children or surviving siblings, and in his will left his entire fortune and two gigantic estates at Liebenberg and Hertefeld to his favorite grand niece, Eulenburg's mother. At one stroke, the Eulenburgs become one of the richest families in Prussia, but Captain von Eulenburg was unable to overcome his long years in poverty, and he had a miserly attitude to spending money. Eulenburg had difficult relations with his father, but was extremely close to his artistic mother. She was a great piano-player, and frequently invited over Cosima von Bülow to play the piano for her. Cosima von Bülow in turn became first the mistress and then the wife of the composer Richard Wagner. Through this family connection, Eulenburg was close to the Wagner family and a member of the Bayreuth Circle that existed to further the Wagner cult.Eulenburg was educated at a French grammar school in Berlin before being educated by a tutor from 1859 onwards. Starting in 1863, he attended the Vitzhumsches Gymnasium in Dresden, Saxony. In 1866 the Austro-Prussian War forced him to leave Saxony, which was now enemy territory. Though he did not relish a military career, he joined the Prussian Gardes du Corps as an officer cadet in accordance with his father's wishes. He then attended the War Academy at Kassel from which he graduated in 1868. During his time at the War Academy, Eulenburg become very close to Count Kuno von Moltke, who would also be exposed as homosexual in the 1907 scandal. In 1867 Eulenburg was promoted to the rank of lieutenant before resigning his commission in 1869 in order to pursue an education in the law. When France declared war on Prussia in July 1870, Eulenburg rejoined the Prussian Army. During the Franco-German War of 1870-1871 he served under the German military governor of Strasbourg and received the Iron Cross. In October 1871, Eulenburg again resigned from the army to resume his legal studies.
After the Franco-Prussian War, Eulenburg travelled for a year in the Orient as the Middle East was then called, a trip which ended when Eulenburg contracted typhus in Egypt. From 1872 to 1875, he attended the University of Leipzig and the University of Strasbourg studying the law. While a student at Leipzig, Eulenburg befriended Baron Axel "Dachs" von Varnbüler, who was to become one of Eulenburg's most important friends. Varnbüler would later recall that Eulenburg was one of the most accomplished students at the university, being "the most versatile, easily the most brilliant and therefore the leading spirit" on the campus.
In 1875 Eulenburg received a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Giessen. After graduating magna cum laude Eulenburg went to Stockholm to marry a wealthy Swedish aristocrat, Countess Augusta Sandels, whom he had been courting via a series of love letters for some time.
Early career
Eulenburg became very close to the French diplomat, writer and racist Count Arthur de Gobineau, whom Eulenburg was later to call his "unforgettable friend". Eulenburg, who was fluent in French, was deeply impressed by Gobineau's book An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, where Gobineau expounded the theory of an Aryan master-race and maintained that the people who had best preserved Aryan blood were the Germans. A snob who held commoners in contempt, Gobineau believed that French aristocrats like himself were descendants of the Germanic Franks who had conquered the Roman province of Gaul in the 5th century, whereas ordinary French people were descendants of Latin and Celtic peoples. Though domestic French political considerations led Gobineau to claim that the Germans were the best Aryans, this thesis ensured that the book had a favorable reception in Germany. Eulenburg sought out Gobineau to personally thank him for his book, and a friendship between the two men blossomed as a result. Eulenburg first met Gobineau in Stockholm in 1874, and the two immediately struck it off. Eulenburg was later to fondly recall how he and Gobineau had spent hours during their time in Sweden under the "Nordic sky, where the old world of the gods lived on in the customs and habits of the people as well in their hearts." Gobineau in turn was later to write that only two people in the entire world had ever properly understood his racist philosophy, namely Richard Wagner and Eulenburg. Gobineau encouraged Eulenburg to promote his theory of an Aryan master-race, telling him: "In this way you will help many people understand things sooner". The American historian Gregory Blue wrote of an "Eulenburg connection" in promoting anti-Asian racism, observing much of Eulenburg's "Yellow Peril" seemed to be taken straight from Gobineau's anti-Asian writings.Eulenburg needed no encouragement and spent the rest of his life promoting racist and anti-Semitic views, writing in his 1906 book Eine Erinneruung an Graf Arthur de Gobineau that Gobineau was a prophet who showed Germany the way forward to national greatness in the 20th century. In 1885, when the editor of the Bayreuther Blätter, the official newspaper of the Wagner cult, wrote to Eulenburg asking that he allow his letters to Gobineau to be published in the newspaper, Eulenburg wrote back to say that he could not publish his correspondence with Gobineau as their letters "touch on so many intimate matters that I cannot extract much from them which is of general interest". Later, Eulenburg was to complain that all of his letters to Gobineau had been destroyed because "They contain too much of an intimately personal nature". The British historian John C. G. Röhl has written that we cannot know for certain what the Eulenburg-Gobineau letters had to say since both of them burned almost all of their correspondence, but it is possible that they had a sexual relationship that was documented in the letters and motivated their destruction.
Eulenbug's politics veered to the extreme right. An ardent racist and anti-Semite, he was fascinated by the racial theories not just of Gobineau but also of Wagner and Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Like many other Prussian conservatives of his generation, Eulenburg always saw the unification of Germany in 1871 under the leadership of Prussia as a fragile achievement, and he was haunted by the prospect that German unification might be undone. Accordingly, he always argued that the Prussian state had to be ruthless when dealing with any sort of internal or external threat, and therefore Eulenburg completely rejected democracy. Eulenburg was quite open in his contempt for the "open" political systems of France and Britain, stating that a "closed" political system was much to be preferred.
Diplomat and artist
Eulenburg joined the Prussian civil service. He served first as a judge at a lower court in Lindow, Brandenburg, before being promoted to a higher court at Neuruppin. After only two years as a judge he transferred to the Auswärtiges Amt. In January 1881, Eulenburg was appointed Third Secretary at the German embassy in Paris, serving under Second Secretary Bernhard von Bülow, who was to become another of Eulenburg's friends. Eulenburg—by all accounts an extremely sensitive man—was devastated by the death of his two-year-old daughter Astrid from diabetes on 23 March 1881, and asked to leave Paris, stating that he could not stand living in the city where his daughter had died.After only six months in Paris, he was transferred to the Prussian embassy to the Kingdom of Bavaria, in Munich, where he served seven years. Eulenburg had little interest in his job, and spent most of his time absorbed in the cultural scene in Munich. The then Bavarian King, Ludwig II, lived a secluded life at Linderhof Palace in the Bavarian mountains, receiving no guests and attending no events in Munich. Thus, even diplomats had no opportunity to be received by him or to meet him. Extremely curious to see the famous monarch, the great benefactor of Richard Wagner and builder of "fairytale castles", Eulenburg traveled to Linderhof with a friend, where he stood by the access road until the king passed him on his daily carriage ride. Eulenburg doffed his hat, which Ludwig reciprocated. This was his only contact with the "Fairytale King", who died a mysterious death in a lake in 1886 after being placed under a regency.
During his time in Munich, Eulenburg become convinced that he was too sensitive for a career in politics, and increasingly become interested in the arts. In 1884, Eulenburg published an autobiographical story entitled "Aus der Art Eine märkische Geschichte", concerning a sensitive, artistic young man with a loving mother and a cold father who pushes the young man to pursue a military career when he really wants a career in the arts, something that his mother understands. In his letters to his mother, Eulenburg always identified his "real self" with her, whom he stated could understand him in a way that his father never could. Eulenburg was later to write that of his father: "He was suffused with the prosaic ethos of Prussia, and inevitably he sought to steer me in a similar direction, when so much inspiration lay dormant in my imagination." Of his mother, Eulenburg wrote: "My mother, whom I deeply adored, the ideal figure who filled my whole being with boundless love, fired my inspiration. Music, painting, poetry occupied her thoughts and she practised the arts with talent and with understanding, and they took full possession of me as well."
Keenly interested in music, Eulenburg enjoyed considerable success as a writer of ballads. Eulenburg wrote a series of "Nordic-mystical" ballads such as Atlantis, Gorm, Frühlinsmacht, Altnordisches Wiegendlied, Märchen von der Freiheit, and Skaldengsänge. The most successful of Eulenburg's musical works were the Rose songs, what the German historian Norman Domier called a series of "saccharine and kitschy" sentimental love songs which were extremely popular with the public and sold over 500,000 copies. Besides composing music, Eulenburg was also a playwright. His first play, Margot, was a success when it premiered in Munich in 1885, and his second play, Der Seestern, was an even bigger success when it premiered in Berlin in 1887.