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{{Short description|German politician and ambassador}}
{{Use British English|date=June 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2017}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff
| image = Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff 1908.jpg
| caption = Bernstorff in 1908
| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1862|11|14}}
| birth_place = [[London]], [[United Kingdom]]
| residence =
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1939|10|6|1862|11|14}}
| death_place = [[Geneva]], [[Switzerland]]
| office = [[German Ambassador to the United States]]
| term_start = 1908
| term_end = 1917
| predecessor = [[Hermann Freiherr Speck von Sternburg]]
| successor = ''Suspended due to World War I''
| office2 = German Ambassador to the [[Ottoman Empire]]
| term_start2 = 1917
| term_end2 = 1918
| office3 = [[Reichstag (Weimar Republic)|Reichstag]]
| term_start3 = 1921
| term_end3 = 1928
| constituency3 =
| party = [[German Democratic Party]]
| occupation =
| majority =
| parents = [[Count Albrecht von Bernstorff]]<br>Anna von Könneritz
| spouse = {{marriage|Jeanne Luckemeyer|1887}}
| children = Luise-Alexandra (1888–1971)<br>Christian-Günther (1891–1947)
}}

'''Johann Heinrich Graf{{efn|{{German title|Graf}}}} von Bernstorff''' (14 November 1862 – 6 October 1939) was a German politician and [[German Ambassador to the United States|ambassador to the United States]] from 1908 to 1917.

== Early life ==
Born in 1862 in London, he was the son of one of the most powerful politicians in the [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussian Kingdom]]. As Foreign Minister for Prussia, his father, [[Count Albrecht von Bernstorff]], had earned the ire of [[Otto von Bismarck]] in the Prussian constitutional crisis of 1859–1866. Overestimating his political strength, Bernstorff resigned in a spat over the constitution with the expectation to force his will on the Prussian government. However, the Emperor accepted Bernstorff's miscalculated challenge and appointed Bismarck chancellor and foreign minister. For the rest of his life, Bernstorff would criticise Bismarck's [[Machiavelli]]an style of governing. In 1862, the elder Bernstorff served as ambassador to the [[Court of St James's]]. For the next eleven years, the young Bernstorff grew up in England until his father's death, in 1873. After moving back to Germany, he went to the humanistic gymnasium in [[Dresden]] from which he graduated with a baccalaureate in 1881.

While Bernstorff's dream had always been to pursue a diplomatic career, the family feud with Bismarck made an appointment to the diplomatic service impossible.<ref>Heribert von Feilitzsch, ''In Plain Sight: Felix A. Sommerfeld, Spymaster in Mexico, 1908 to 1914,'' Henselstone Verlag, Virginia, 2012, pp. 203–204</ref> As a result, he joined the [[Prussian Army]] for the next eight years and served in an artillery unit in Berlin.

After being elected a member of the [[Reichstag (German Empire)|Reichstag]], he finally succeeded in convincing the Bismarcks to settle the dispute with the long-dead father.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-EVdYq7oK_kC&q=Johann+heinrich+bernstorff&pg=PA332|title=World War I |access-date=19 October 2009 |work=Priscilla Mary Roberts |year=2006 |isbn=9781851098798 |last1=Tucker |first1=Spencer |publisher=Abc-Clio }}</ref> In 1887, von Bernstorff married Jeanne Luckemeyer, a [[German-American]].<ref>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1908/11/08/104812381.pdf NY Times 8 November 1908]</ref> She was a native of New York City and daughter of a wealthy silk merchant.<ref>"Bernstorff's wife again U.S. citizen," ''The New York Times'', 25 February 1939, p. 13.</ref>

==Career==
===First diplomatic postings===
His first diplomatic assignment was [[Constantinople]], where he served as military attaché. From 1892 to 1894, he served at the German embassy in [[Belgrade]]. After a brief assignment to [[St. Petersburg]] (1895–1897), Bernstorff was stationed in [[Munich]] for a period. He then became First Secretary of the German embassy in London (1902–1906).<ref>{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=Latest intelligence - German diplomatic changes |date=3 November 1902 |page=4 |issue=36915}}</ref> Bernstorff's diplomatic skills were noted in Berlin throughout the [[First Moroccan Crisis]] in 1905. He then served as consul general in [[Cairo]] (1906–1908).<ref name=Adam>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8uxfTF4Lm-kC&q=Johann+heinrich+bernstorff&pg=PA143|title=Germany and the Americas: culture, politics, and history |access-date=19 October 2009 |work=Thomas Adam |year=2005 |isbn=9781851096282 |last1=Adam |first1=Thomas |last2=Kaufman |first2=Will |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic }}</ref>

Despite his family's problems with the Bismarcks, Bernstorff basically agreed with Bismarck's policies, particularly the decision to found the German Reich without Austria in 1871. As a diplomat, Bernstorff adamantly supported Anglo-German rapprochement and considered the policies of [[Wilhelm II]] "reckless".<ref>Johann Count von Bernstorff, Memoirs of Count Bernstorff, Random House, New York, NY, 1936.</ref>

=== Ambassador to the United States ===
[[File:JohannVBernstorff.PNG|thumb|Johann H. von Bernstorff, 1919<ref>{{cite web|last1=Donovan|first1=Henry|title=Chicago Eagle|url=http://idnc.library.illinois.edu/cgi-bin/illinois?a=d&d=CHE19190524&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------#|website=Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections|access-date=26 June 2015}}</ref>]]
In 1908, Bernstorff was appointed the German ambassador to the United States.<ref name=Venzon>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YiZRC8bsOuoC&pg=PA82|title=The United States in the First World War: an encyclopedia |access-date=19 October 2009 |year=1999 |isbn=9780815333531 |last1=Venzon |first1=Anne Cipriano |last2=Miles |first2=Paul L. |publisher=Taylor & Francis }}</ref>

Bernstorff was recalled to Germany on 7 July 1914 and returned on 2 August, upon the outbreak of the [[World War I]]. Bernstorff's ambassadorship in Washington was characterised by a diplomatic battle with the British ambassador, Sir [[Cecil Spring Rice]], with both men attempting to influence the American government's position regarding the war.<ref>S. Gwynn, 'The Letters and Friendships of Sir Cecil Spring Rice' (Constable & Co Lt, London, 1929), 352.</ref> That year, the German diplomatic mission also began supporting the expatriate [[Indian independence movement#World War|Indian movement for independence]].

Prior to the submarine crisis following the [[sinking of the RMS Lusitania]], the ambassador had privately concluded that the submarine campaign was of questionable legality and against Germany's best interests. Bernstorff issued a warning in US newspapers about the general dangers of the submarine war-zone, but this warning was coincidentally printed just before the ship set sail. During the crisis, contrary to Germany's official defenses, Bernstorff believed that Lusitania could not have been targeted specifically, and that it was "obviously sound policy to refrain as far as possible from any attack on passenger ships".<ref name="Bernstorff">{{cite book|first=Johann Heinrich|last=von Bernstorff|title=My Three Years in America|year=1920|pages=136–140|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/30865/pg30865-images.html}}</ref> Bernstorff saw his role as preserving diplomatic relations with the US "under all circumstances", and frequently acted without or exceeded instruction from Berlin, for which he was sometimes reprimanded.<ref>{{cite thesis|title = International law, German submarines and American policy | last = Manson | first = Janet Marilyn | year = 1977 | publisher = Portland State University | degree = Master of Arts | doi = 10.15760/etd.2489|pages = 121, 179| doi-access = free }}</ref> This was most significant in the crisis around the [[Arabic pledge|sinking of the SS ''Arabic'']] in August 1915.

Bernstorff was returned home on 3 February 1917, when US President [[Woodrow Wilson]] severed diplomatic relations with Germany after the resumption of [[unrestricted submarine warfare]]. Upon receiving the news, Colonel [[Edward M. House]] wrote to him: "It is too sad that your Government should have declared the unrestricted U-boat war at a moment when we were so near to peace. The day will come when people in Germany will see how much you have done for your country in America."{{sfn|von Bernstorff|1920|pages=382-383}}

===Sabotage activities===
{{More citations needed section|date=April 2024}}
As ambassador, Bernstorff was also provided with a large [[slush fund]] to finance intelligence operations. He began with attempts to assist German-Americans who wished to return home to fight by forging passports to get them through the Allied [[blockade]]. As the blockade began to prevent American munitions manufacturers from trading with Germany, Bernstorff began financing sabotage missions to obstruct arms shipments to Germany's enemies. Some of the plans included a September 1914 attempt at destroying the [[Welland Canal]], which circumvents [[Niagara Falls]].

Bernstorff was assisted by Captain [[Franz von Papen]], later a German chancellor, and Captain [[Karl Boy-Ed]], a naval attaché. The commercial attaché, [[Heinrich Albert (politician)|Heinrich Albert]], was the finance officer for the sabotage operations. Papen and the German consulate in San Francisco were known to have been extensively involved in the [[Hindu–German Conspiracy]], especially in the [[Annie Larsen affair|''Annie Larsen'' gun-running plot]]. Although Bernstorff himself officially denied all knowledge, most accounts agree that he was intricately involved as part of the German intelligence and sabotage offensive in America against Britain. After the capture of the {{ship||Annie Larsen}} and confiscation of its cargo, Bernstorff made efforts to recover the $200,000 worth of arms and insisted that they were meant for Colonel [[Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck]] in [[German East Africa]]. That was futile, however, and the arms were auctioned off.

In December 1914, a humorous British article on his activities in the United States, ''The Amazing Ambassador'', by [[P.G. Wodehouse]], was published in the ''Sunday Chronicle'' on 13 December 1914.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.madameulalie.org/others/The_Amazing_Ambassador.html|title=Madame Eulalie - Stories from Other Publications}}</ref> That month also saw Bernstorff receive a cable from the German Foreign Office that instructed him to target the Canadian railways. On 1 January 1915, the Roebling Wire and Cable plant in [[Trenton, New Jersey|Trenton]], [[New Jersey]], was blown up. On 28 January, an American merchant ship carrying wheat to Britain was sunk. On 2 February 1915, Lieutenant Werner Horn was captured after the [[1915 Vanceboro international bridge bombing|Vanceboro international bridge bombing]].

In 1915, Bernstorff also helped organise what became known as the [[Great Phenol Plot]], an attempt to divert [[phenol]] from the production of [[high explosives]] in the United States, which would end up being sold to the British, and to prop up several German-owned chemical companies that made [[aspirin]] and its precursor, [[salicylic acid]]. In September 1915, his agents attempted to influence the negotiations between American banks and the [[Anglo-French Financial Commission]] but failed to prevent an agreement from being reached. In 1916, his wife was involved in blackmail plot by a former German spy, [[Armgaard Karl Graves]]. In July 1916, the [[Black Tom explosion]] was the most spectacular of the sabotage operations.

Some of Bernstorff's other activities were exposed by the British Secret Service, which had obtained and distributed to the press a photograph of him "in a swimming costume with his arms around two similarly dressed women, neither of whom was his wife".<ref>''MI6, The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909 – 1949'', Keith Jeffery, Bloomsbury, 2010. p. 113</ref> In 1910, [[Brown University]] had conferred an [[Honorary degree|honorary]] [[Doctor of Laws]] degree on Bernstorff. At the school's commencement in 1918, while the war was going on, University President [[William Faunce]] read a resolution of the board of fellows revoking the degree because "while he was Ambassador of the Imperial German Government to the United States and while the nations were still at peace, [Bernstorff] was guilty of conduct dishonorable alike in a gentleman and a diplomat".<ref>Martha Mitchell, "[https://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/Databases/Encyclopedia/search.php?serial=H0200 Honorary degrees] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190724164029/https://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/Databases/Encyclopedia/search.php?serial=H0200 |date=24 July 2019 }}" in ''Encyclopedia Brunoniana'' (1993).</ref>

=== Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire ===
He assumed his position as ambassador to the [[Ottoman Empire]] in 1917. Bernstorff conceded that the Ottoman policy against the Armenians was one of [[Armenian genocide|exterminating the race]].<ref name=bernstorff /> Bernstorff provided a detailed account of the massacres in his memoirs, ''Memoirs of Count Bernstorff''. In his memoirs, Bernstorff recounts a conversation with [[Talaat Pasha|Talat Pasha]] after the massacres had been concluded: "When I kept on pestering him about the Armenian question, he once said with a smile: 'What on earth do you want? The question is settled, there are no more Armenians.'"<ref name=bernstorff>{{cite book|last=A.|first=Bernstorff|title=Memoirs of Count Bernstorff|year=2011|publisher=Kessinger Publishing|isbn=978-1-169-93525-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pXXztgAACAAJ}}</ref>

=== Weimar Republic ===
[[File:GraveJohannHeinrichVonBernstorff-CimetiereDeGenthod RomanDeckert08052024.jpg|thumb|Bernstorff`s tomb in 2024.]]
Bernstorff was proposed as Foreign Minister in [[Philipp Scheidemann]]'s [[Cabinet Scheidemann|cabinet]] in 1919, but he refused that post and left the diplomatic service.<ref name=Venzon/> He became a founding member of the [[German Democratic Party]] (''Deutsche Demokratische Partei'') and a member of the [[Reichstag (Weimar Republic)|German Parliament]] in 1921 to 1928. He was the first President of the German Association for the [[League of Nations]], President of the World Federation of Associations of the League of Nations<ref name=Adam/> and a member of every German delegation to the League of Nations.<ref>[http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0001/bsb00016318/images/index.html?id=00016318&fip=84.139.193.23&no=&seite=162 Biography] at [[Neue Deutsche Biographie]]</ref>

In 1926, he became the Chairman of [[Kurt Blumenfeld]]'s [[Zionist]] German Pro-Palestine Committee (''Deutsches Pro-Palästina Komitee'') to support the foundation of a Jewish State in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]].<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W3zk3PdfRb8C&pg=PA370|title=Oscar Cohn, Ein Sozialist und Zionist im Kaiserreich und in der Weimarer Republik |access-date=19 October 2009 |work=Ludger Heid|publisher=Campus |year=2002 |isbn=9783593370408 |language=de}}</ref>
From 1926 to 1931, he was the chairman of the German delegation to the Preparatory [[World Disarmament Conference]].<ref name=Adam/>

Bernstorff, who was explicitly mentioned by [[Hitler]] as one of those men bearing "the guilt and responsibility for the collapse of Germany",<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/germanyhitlerwor0000wein|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/germanyhitlerwor0000wein/page/38 38]|first=Gerhard L.| last=Weinberg|title=Germany, Hitler, and World War II: essays in modern German and world history|access-date=21 October 2009 |publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1996 |isbn=9780521474078}}</ref> left Germany in 1933 after the [[Nazis]] had risen to power and moved to [[Geneva]], [[Switzerland]], where he died on 6 October 1939. He found his final resting place at the cemetery of [[Genthod]], a few metres from the grave of his son-in-law Raymond de Pourtalès (1882-1914), who was his secretary at the Embassy in Washington DC.

== Publications ==
* [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000444854 ''My three years in America''] (New York: Scribner's, 1920)<ref>{{cite journal|title=Review of ''Deutschland und Amerika: Erinnerungen aus dem Fünfjährigen Kriege'' von Graf Johann Heinrich Bernstorff & ''My Three Years in America'' by Count Bernstorff|journal=The American Historical Review|year=1920|volume=26|pages=98101|issn=1937-5239|doi=10.1086/ahr/26.1.98|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x001983607&view=1up&seq=107&q1=bernstorff|url-access=subscription}}</ref>
* ''Memoirs of Count Bernstorff'' (New York: Random House, 1936)

==See also==
* [[Witnesses and testimonies of the Armenian genocide]]
* [[Foreign policy of the Theodore Roosevelt administration]]
* [[Foreign policy of the Woodrow Wilson administration]]

== Notes ==
{{Notelist}}

== References ==
{{Reflist|2}}

== External links ==
{{commons category|Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff}}
{{EB1922 Poster|Bernstorff, Count Johann Heinrich von|Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff}}
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=t8If0ct6LfMC&dq=weizman+bernstorff&pg=PA75 Bernstorff] next to [[Chaim Weizmann]] and [[Albert Einstein]] in 1926 at the foundation of the pro-Palestine Committee
* Hoser, Paul: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/bernstorff_johann_heinrich_graf_von/ Bernstorff, Johann Heinrich, Graf von], in: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/home.html/ 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War].
{{Gutenberg|no=30865|name=My Three Years in America|author=Count Bernstorff}}

{{Ambassadors of Germany to the United States}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bernstorff, Johann Heinrich Von}}
[[Category:1862 births]]
[[Category:1939 deaths]]
[[Category:Nobility from London]]
[[Category:Counts in Germany]]
[[Category:German Protestants]]
[[Category:German Democratic Party politicians]]
[[Category:Members of the Reichstag 1924]]
[[Category:Members of the Reichstag 1924–1928]]
[[Category:Ambassadors of Germany to the United States]]
[[Category:Ambassadors of Germany to the Ottoman Empire]]
[[Category:German people of World War I]]
[[Category:Espionage in the United States]]
[[Category:Hindu–German Conspiracy]]
[[Category:Witnesses of the Armenian genocide]]
[[Category:German expatriates in the Ottoman Empire]]
[[Category:World War I spies for Germany]]
[[Category:People stripped of honorary degrees]]
[[Category:Emigrants from Nazi Germany to Switzerland]]

Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff - Revision history

SamantBrara at 22:02, 26 March 2026