Publisher's Synopsis
Friedrich von Holstein (1837-1909) was Bismarck's subordinate at the German Foreign Office, and later responsible for planning and directing German foreign policy though he never held a conspicuously high rank. In his retirement he remained active behind the scenes. Since his death historians, their imagination released by equal measures of prejudice and lack of information, have combined to make him a monster of sinister and self-seeking policy. At various times von Holstein kept diaries, at three others he began memoirs, during his whole life he wrote and received countless letters, and originals or copies of many of these survive. A selection of this Nachlass, which was first published in volume form between 1955 and 1963, is presented in this four-volume set. The original effect of this publication prompted an entire re-judgement of Bismarck, of German foreign policy at that time and since, and naturally of Holstein himself.
