Guido von Usedom (diplomat)

Karl Georg Ludwig Guido von Usedom, since 1862 Graf von Usedom (17 July 1805 – 22 January 1884) was a Prussian diplomat.

Biography

File:Rittergut Carzitz Sammlung Duncker.jpg

Kartzitz Castle around 1860, Alexander Duncker Collection

Usedom's mother Carolina Wilhelmina Friderika Amalia von Usedom died in her bed one day after his birth. Until the age of 6 he was brought up by his maternal grandparents in Hechingen and then spent his youth with his father in Rügen (Kartzitz). His grandmother, Marie Karoline Sophie von Usedom, took over his education.

Later he attended the Pforta boarding school. He studied law at the Royal University of Greifswald, the Georg August University of Göttingen and the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin. In Göttingen he became a member of the Corps Borussia in 1828. Usedom entered the Prussian civil service in 1830 and, after extended travels, became legation secretary in Rome in 1835. In 1838, he became lecturing councilor in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in 1844 of the Interior, in 1846 envoy in Rome, and in 1848 in Frankfurt am Main. He concluded the Peace of Berlin (1850) and was again envoy to Rome from 1851 to 1854. In 1858 he succeeded Otto von Bismarck as envoy to the Bundestag in Frankfurt.

In 1863, after being elevated to the rank of count, he became envoy to Victor Emmanuel II, took an outstanding part in the negotiations in 1866 and wrote the Stoß-ins-Herz-Depesche published by Alfonso La Marmora. He was recalled in 1869 because of a difference with Bismarck, was appointed provisional Director General of the Royal Museums in Berlin in 1872, but retired in 1879.

He was a member of the Gotha Masonic Lodge Ernst zum Compaß.

Member of Parliament

Usedom was a member of the First Chamber of the Landtag of Prussia from 1849 to 1852. In 1850, he was a member of the People's House of the Erfurt Union Parliament. From 1859 to 1860 he sat as a deputy for the Stralsund 1 constituency in the Prussian House of Representatives, where he belonged to the Mathis faction. From 1860 until his death in 1884, he was a member of the Prussian House of Lords.

Family

He married Luise Fischer in his first marriage and Olympia Malcolm (1811–1886), daughter of British Lieutenant General John Malcolm, former governor of Bombay, in his second marriage (August 8, 1849). The couple had one daughter: Hildegarde Charlotte (1852–1924).

Works

• Briefe und Charakteristiken aus der deutschen Gegenwart (1849)

References

• E. Berner, "Usedom, Karl Georg Ludwig Guido Graf von". In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). 39. Duncker & Humblot: Leipzig, 1895, pp. 375–77.
• Carl Bollmann, Ideen zu einem Reichsbunde. Hamburg: Richter, 1862.
• Rosemarie von Milczewski, Zwischen Rügen und Rom. Das Leben des Guido von Usedom. Thomas Helms Verlag: Schwerin, 2010.