Wilhelm von Mirbach

Wilhelm von Mirbach-Harff
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-2007-0327-504, Graf Wilhelm von Mirbach-Harff.jpg Wilhelm von Mirbach
German Ambassador to Russia
In office April 1918 – July 1918
Personal details
Born	(1871-07-02)July 2, 1871 Bad Ischl, Austria
Died	Moscow, Russia

Wilhelm Graf von Mirbach-Harff (2 July 1871 – 6 July 1918) was a German diplomat.

Biography

Mirbach was born in Bad Ischl in Upper Austria. Born in a Catholic Rhenan aristocratic family, he is a scion of de, founder of the de Knight academy. His parents are Ernst Graf von Mirbach and his wife Wilhelmine von Thun-Hohenstein (1851–1929).

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 Entente-leaning government of Eleftherios Venizelos takes power.

He participated in the Russian-German negotiations in Brest-Litovsk from December 1917 to March 1918. He was appointed German ambassador to Russia in April 1918.

Mirbach was assassinated by Yakov Grigorevich Blumkin at the request of the Central Committee of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who tried to incite a war between Russia and Germany. Blumkin entered Mirbach's residence in Moscow using forged papers and shot his victim at point blank range. Mirbach's assassination signaled the beginning of the revolt of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries in Moscow in 1918.

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 Fraction at the West German Embassy siege in Stockholm in 1975.

Notes and references

Regarding personal names: Until 1919, Graf was a title, translated as Count, not a first or middle name. The female form is Gräfin. In Germany, it has formed part of family names since 1919.