Wilhelm von Mirbach

2025-07-22T05:23:01Z

2A00:23C7:924:A801:60:4631:6E84:7BEF: Felix Dzerzhinsky briefly left the Cheka leadership after Wilhelm von Mirbach's assassination.

{{Short description|German diplomat (1871–1918)}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific_prefix = '''[[Graf]]'''
| image = Wilhelm von Mirbach-Harff (c. 1918).png
| caption = Mirbach {{circa|1918}}
| birth_date = {{birth date|1871|7|2|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[Bad Ischl]], Austria-Hungary
| residence =
| death_date = {{death date and age|1918|7|6|1871|7|2|df=y}}
| death_place = [[Moscow]], [[Russian SFSR]]
| office = [[List of ambassadors of Germany to Russia|Ambassador of Germany to Russia]]
| term_start = April 1918
| term_end = July 1918
| party =
| occupation =
| majority =
| spouse =
| children =
}}

'''Wilhelm Maria Theodor Ernst Richard Graf<ref>{{German title Graf}}</ref> von Mirbach-Harff''' (2 July 1871 – 6 July 1918) was a German [[diplomat]]. He was assassinated while [[List of ambassadors of Germany to Russia|ambassador to Russia]].

==Biography==
Born on 2 July 1871, in [[Bad Ischl]], to a Catholic Rhenan aristocratic family, he was a scion of {{Interlanguage link multi|Johann Wilhelm von Mirbach-Harff|de}}, founder of the {{Interlanguage link multi|Rheinische Ritterakademie{{!}}Rhineland|de|3=Rheinische Ritterakademie}} [[Knight academy]]. His parents were Ernst Graf von Mirbach and his wife Wilhelmine von Thun-Hohenstein (1851–1929).

Mirbach started his diplomatic career in [[London]], where he was [[Third Secretary]] at the German Embassy from 1899 to 1902, when he transferred to [[The Hague]]. From 1908 to 1911, Mirbach served as the embassy clerk in [[Saint Petersburg]], and then as political councillor for the German military command in [[Bucharest]]. In 1915, he became the German ambassador in Greece, before being expelled from Athens in December 1916 when the [[Allies of World War I|Entente]]-leaning government of [[Eleftherios Venizelos]] took power.<ref>{{cite news|newspaper=[[Le Miroir (magazine)|Le Miroir]]|title=L'expulsion du comte de Mirbach, ministre d'Allemagne, à Athènes|trans-title=The expulsion of the count of Mirbach, minister of Germany, in Athens|language=fr|number=160|date=17 December 1916|url=http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6522786h|access-date=2015-01-28}}</ref>

He participated in the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian]]-German negotiations in [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk|Brest-Litovsk]] from December 1917 to March 1918. He was appointed German [[Ambassador (diplomacy)|ambassador]] to Russia in April 1918.

Mirbach was [[assassination|assassinated]] at the German embassy in Moscow by [[Yakov Grigorevich Blumkin]] and Nikolai Andreyev at the request of the Central Committee of the [[Left Socialist-Revolutionaries]], who were trying to reignite the war between Russia and Germany. Blumkin entered Mirbach's residence in [[Moscow]] using forged papers and shot his victim at point blank range. As Mirbach tried to escape, Andreyev fired a second bullet and both of the assassins leapt out of the window and then drove away in a [[Cheka]] car.<ref>{{cite book |last= West |first=Nigel |date=15 August 2017 |title=Encyclopedia of Political Assassinations |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SZMtDwAAQBAJ&q=mirbach+wilhelm+encyclopedia+of+political+assassinations&pg=PA167 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |pages=167–168 |isbn=978-1-538-10239-8 }}</ref> Mirbach's assassination signaled the beginning of the [[Left SR uprising|revolt of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries]] in Moscow, on 6 July 1918.

The leader of the [[Cheka]], [[Felix Dzerzhinsky]], briefly resigned his post after the assassination of Mirbach, with [[Jēkabs Peterss]] briefly taking over as Cheka leader from 7 July 1918. Dzerzhinsky had wanted harsher [[Red Terror]] measures against Left SR terrorists. Dzerzhinsky returned to the Cheka leadership on 22 August 1918, and soon got his wish for harsher measures after 30 August 1918, when the head of the [[Saint Petersburg|Petrograd]] Cheka, [[Moisei Uritsky]], was assassinated, on the same day that [[Vladimir Lenin]] was the victim of a failed assassination attempt where he was shot with bullets.

Mirbach was succeeded as German ambassador to Russia by [[Karl Helfferich]].

Coincidentally, a later relative, [[Andreas von Mirbach]], would be murdered by the [[Red Army Faction]] at the [[West German Embassy siege]] in [[Stockholm]] in 1975.

==Honours==
He received the following orders and decorations:
* {{flagicon image|Flag of Prussia (1892-1918).svg}} [[Kingdom of Prussia]]:
** [[Order of the Red Eagle]], 4th class, ''1900''<ref>{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=Court Circular |date=22 March 1900 |page=6 |issue=36096}}</ref>

==References==
<references/>

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mirbach, Wilhelm}}
[[Category:1871 births]]
[[Category:1918 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Bad Ischl]]
[[Category:Deaths by firearm in Russia]]
[[Category:Counts in Germany]]
[[Category:Members of the Prussian House of Lords]]
[[Category:Germany–Soviet Union relations (1918–1941)]]
[[Category:Treaty of Brest-Litovsk negotiators]]
[[Category:Assassinated German diplomats]]
[[Category:German people murdered abroad]]
[[Category:Ambassadors of Germany to Russia]]
[[Category:People murdered in Russia]]
[[Category:Ambassadors of Germany to Greece]]
[[Category:20th-century German diplomats]]
[[Category:People assassinated in the 20th century]]
[[Category:Assassinated ambassadors]]

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Wilhelm von Mirbach