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SUMMARY:Bernstorff Reconsidered - George Liebmann\, Senior Academic Visito
 r
DTSTART:20121121T130000Z
DTEND:20121121T140000Z
UID:TALK39245@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Elizabeth C Blake
DESCRIPTION:Count Johann von Bernstorff\, the German Ambassador to the Uni
 ted States during the first three years of World War I\, was regarded by m
 any in the United States and Britain as the sum of all villainy. In the Un
 ited States\, his name was unfairly associated with the Black Tom explosio
 n and the Zimmermann telegram. In Britain\, his insidious influence on Woo
 drow Wilson and obsequious (and sometimes unauthorized) apologies for Germ
 an submarine outrages is blamed for years of delay in America's entry into
  the First World War\, and consequent bloodshed and stalemate. After Ameri
 ca's entry into the war\, the nation's leading universities competed with 
 one another in revoking Bernstorff's honorary degrees\; as an official of 
 an organization supporting the League of Nations\, he found difficulty in 
 visiting Britain after the war\, and his unpopularity in the Anglo-Saxon c
 ountries is one reason\, but not the only reason\, that the German delegat
 ion at Versailles was led by Count Ulrich Brockdorff-Rantzau\, and not Ber
 nstorff\, the organizer and author of the German response to Allied propos
 als.\n\nGeorge Liebmann\, a Senior Academic Visitor at Wolfson is the auth
 or of a chapter on Bernsrorff in his Diplomacy Between the Wars: Five Dipl
 omats and the Shaping of the Modern World (I.B.Tauris\, 2008). His talk wi
 ll describe some of the lesser-known aspects of Bernstorff's career\, incl
 uding his warnings about naval competition and unrestricted submarine warf
 are\, his efforts to promote negotiations after the German defeat at the f
 irst battle of the Marne\, the nature of his elaborate peace conference pr
 oposals\, his influence as German Ambassador to Turkey\,  and his post-war
  career as a member of the Reichstag\, organizer of a Democratic Club\, Ge
 rman delegate to the Preparatory Disarmament Conference\, President of the
  German League of Nations Union and Pro Palestina organization\, and ultim
 ately as a political exile from 1932 until his death.
LOCATION:Council Room\, Wolfson College
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