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Philip Frederick Alexander, Prince of Eulenburg and Hertefeld, Count of Sandels, in German: ''Philipp Friedrich Alexander Fürst zu Eulenburg und Hertefeld, Graf von Sandels'' (12 February 1847 – 17 September 1921) was a politician and diplomat of imperial Germany in the late 19th century and early 20th century. He was also a composer and writer. ==Early life== Eulenburg was born at Königsberg, Province of Prussia, the eldest son of Philipp Konrad Graf zu Eulenburg (Königsberg, 24 April 1820 – Berlin, 5 March 1889) and of his wife, Alexandrine Freiin von Rothkirch und Panthen (Glogau, 20 June 1824 – Meran, 11 April 1902).〔Röhl, John ''The Kaiser and His Court'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994 page 29.〕 The Eulenburgs were a Junker family which belonged to the Uradel (ancient nobility). For generations the family had served the House of Hohenzollern; his uncle, Friedrich Albrecht zu Eulenburg served as Interior Minister of Prussia as did his cousin Botho zu Eulenburg. The Eulenburgs, through ''Junkers'' were improvised aristocracy and until 1867 depended entirely upon Philipp von Eulenburg’s salary as a captain in the Prussian Army.〔Röhl, John ''The Kaiser and His Court'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994 page 30.〕 In 1867 Baron Karl von Hertefeld died without any children or surviving siblings, and in his will left his entire fortune and two gigantic estates at Liebenberg and Hertefeld to his favorite niece, Eulenburg’s mother.〔 At one stoke, the Eulenburgs become one of the richest families in Prussia, but Captain von Eulenburg was unable to afford his long years in poverty, and he had a miserly attitude to spending money.〔 Eulenberg had difficult relations with his father, but was extremely close to his artistic mother. Eulenberg’s mother was a great piano-player, and frequently invited over Cosima von Bülow to play the piano for her.〔Röhl, John ''The Kaiser and His Court'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994 page 33.〕 Cosima von Bülow in turn became first the mistress and then the wife of the composer Richard Wagner. Through this family connection, Eulenberg was become close to the Wagner family and a member of the Bayreuth Circle that existed to further the Wagner cult.〔 Eulenberg was educated at a French grammar school in Berlin before being educated by a tutor from 1859 onwards.〔 Eulenburg attended the Vitzhumsches Gymnasium in Dresden, Saxony starting in 1863.〔 In 1866 the Austro-Prussian War forced him to leave Saxony which was now enemy territory. He joined the Gardes du Corps as an officer cadet at his father’s wishes, through Eulenberg did not relish a military career.〔 He then attended the War Academy at Kassel from which he graduated in 1868. During his time at the War Academy, Eulenberg become very close to Count Kuno von Moltke, a man he was later accused of regularly sodomizing.〔 In 1867 he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant before resigning his commission in 1869 in order to pursue an education in the law.〔 When France declared war on Prussia in July 1870, Eulenberg rejoined the Prussian Army.〔Röhl, John ''The Kaiser and His Court'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994 page 31.〕 During the Franco-German War in 1870- 1871 he served under the German military governor of Strasbourg and received the Iron Cross.〔 In October 1871, Eulenberg again resigned from the Army to pursue his legal studies.〔 After the Franco-Prussian War Eulenburg travelled in the Orient (in the 19th century, what is now known as the Middle East was called the Orient by Europeans) for a year, a trip ended when Eulenburg contacted typhus in Egypt.〔 From 1872 to 1875 he attended the University of Leipzig and the University of Strasbourg studying the law.〔 While as a student at the University of Leipzig, Eulenberg befriended Baron Axel "Dachs" von Varnbüler, who was to become one of Eulenberg’s most important friends.〔 Varnbüler was later to recall that Eulenberg was one of the most students at the university, being “the most versatile, easily the most brilliant and therefore the leading spirit” on the campus.〔 During this time, Eulenburg become very close to the French diplomat, writer and racist Arthur de Gobineau, whom Eulenburg was later to call his “unforgettable friend”.〔Röhl, John ''The Kaiser and His Court'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994 pages 33 & 54.〕 Eulenburg who was fluent in French had read Gobineau's book ''Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines'' (''An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races''), where Gobineau had invented the theory of an Aryan master-race, and was deeply impressed. Gobineau argued in ''Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines'' that the people who had best preserved the Aryan blood were the Germans; the aristocratic snob Gobineau who held common people in utter contempt believed that French aristocrats like himself were the descendants of the Germanic Franks who had conquered the Roman province of Gaul in the 5th century while ordinary French people were the descendants of Latin and Celtic peoples. Through the reasons why Gobineau had claimed that Germans were the best Aryans were due to domestic French politics, the message of ''Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines'' ensured that the book had a favorable reception in Germany. Eulenburg had sought Gobineau out to personally thank him for his book, and a friendship between the two men had bloomed as a result. Eulenburg first met Gobineau in Stockholm in 1874 and the two immediately become very close.〔Domeier, Norman ''The Eulenburg Affair: A Cultural History of Politics in the German Empire'', Rochester: Boydell & Brewer, 2015 page 171.〕 Eulenburg was later to fondly recall how he and Gobineau had spent hours during their time in Sweden under the "Nordic sky, where the old world of the gods lived on in the customs and habits of the people as well in their hearts."〔 Gobineau in his turn was later to write that only two people in the entire world had ever properly understood his racist philosophy, namely Richard Wagner and Eulenburg.〔 Gobineau encouraged Eulenburg to promote his theory of an Aryan master-race, telling him: "In this way you will help many people understand things sooner".〔 Eulenburg needed no encouragement, and spent the rest of his life promoting racist and anti-Semitic views, writing in his 1906 book ''Eine Erinneruung an Graf Arthur de Gobineau'' (''A Memoir of Count Arthur de Gobineau'') that Gobineau was a prophet who showed Germany the way forward to national greatness in the 20th century.〔 In 1885, when the editor of the ''Bayreuther Blätter'', the official newspaper of the Wagner cult wrote to Eulenburg asking that he allow his letters to Gobineau to be published in the newspaper, Eulenburg wrote back to say that he could not publish his correspondence with Gobineau as their letters “…touch on so many intimate matters that I cannot extract much from them which is of general interest”.〔Röhl, John ''The Kaiser and His Court'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994 page 54.〕 Later, Eulenburg was to complain that all of his letters to Gobineau had be destroyed because “They contain too much of an intimately personal nature”.〔 The British historian John C. G. Röhl wrote no-one will know for certain what the Eulenburg-Gobineau letters had to say because both Gobineau and Eulenburg burned almost all of their letters, but given Eulenburg’s homosexuality, it is quite possible that Eulenburg had a sexual relationship with Gobineau, which would explain why Eulenburg was so obsessive about destroying his correspondence with Gobineau.〔 In 1875 Eulenburg received a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from the University of Giessen.〔 After graduating ''magna cum laude'', Eulenberg went to Stockholm to marry a wealthy Swedish woman, the Countess Augusta Sandels whom he had courting via a series of love letters for some time.〔 Eulenbug’s politics veered to the extreme right.〔 An ardent racist and anti-Semite, Eulenburg was fascinated by the racial theories of Arthur de Gobineau, Richard Wagner and Houston Stewart Chamberlain.〔 Like many other Prussian conservatives of his generation, Eulenburg always saw the unification of Germany in 1871 under the leadership of Prussia as a fragile achievement, and was haunted by the prospect that German unification might be undone.〔 Accordingly, Eulenburg always argued that the Prussian state had to be ruthless when dealing with any sort of internal or external threat, and therefore Eulenburg completely rejected democracy.〔 Eulenburg was quite open in his contempt for the “open” political systems of France and Britain, stating a “closed” political system was much to be preferred.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Philip, Prince of Eulenburg」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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