Adolf Georg Otto von Maltzan

Adolf Georg Otto "Ago" von Maltzan, Baron zu Wartenberg und Penzlin (31 July 1877 – 23 September 1927) was a German diplomat during the Weimar Republic, serving as State Secretary of the Foreign Office and Ambassador in Washington.

Early life Baron von Maltzan, nicknamed Ago based on the initials of his baptismal names, was born on 31 July 1877 on his father's estate at Klein-Varchow, Mecklenburg, Germany. He was the eldest son of manor owner Ulrich von Maltzan (1846–1931) and his wife Adelheid (née Bierbaum) von Maltzan (1857–1924). He was part of the nobility of Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania.

Career U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, U.S. Ambassador Alanson B. Houghton, and von Maltzan, in Berlin, August 1924 After completing his studies and military service, von Maltzan started his diplomatic service for the German Empire in 1906. He was initially employed as attaché in Rio de Janeiro in 1907, legation secretary in Oslo in 1909, St. Petersburg in 1911. In 1912 he was promoted to legation counselor and was assigned to Peking where he acted as chargé d'affaires during the 1911 Revolution. Between his posts abroad, he took the diplomatic exam in 1908, and held "home posts" in the Foreign Office in Berlin, in the Reich Chancellery and at the Prussian Embassy in Stuttgart. As such, von Maltzan played a key role in bringing about the Treaty of Rapallo between Germany and Soviet Russia (from the end of 1922 the Soviet Union), which was signed on 16 April 1922.

In 1924, von Maltzan was appointed as the ambassador to the German Embassy in Washington but did not present his credentials to President Calvin Coolidge at the White House until 12 March 1925. In October 1925, von Maltzan and Secretary Frank B. Kellogg exchanged ratifications of a commercial treaty which was the first treaty between the countries following World War I with the exception of the peace treaty. After his death, he was replaced by Friedrich Wilhelm von Prittwitz und Gaffron.

Personal life

In 1914, Maltzan was married to Edith Emma Henriette Marie Luise Gruson (1886–1976), a daughter of industrialist Hermann August Gruson and granddaughter of Hermann Gruson of Magdeburg. Together, they were the parents of a daughter:

Edith Carola Adelheid Marie von Maltzan (1919–2009), who married Princeton graduate Carl Erik Hutz, a son of Dr. Rudolf Hutz of Englewood, New Jersey, in 1939. They divorced in Reno, Nevada in 1953. She later married industrialist , a son of Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach and heiress Bertha Krupp of ThyssenKrupp.

During a stay at home in 1927, von Maltzan died on 23 September 1927, along with five others, when his Lufthansa monoplane crashed over Schleiz in Thüringen on the way from Berlin to Munich. His body was buried on his parents' estate in Grossen Luckow. In New York City, a memorial service was held for him at Zion Lutheran Church on the Upper East Side, which nearly 1,000 people attended including Julius P. Meyer, Rudolph Kessmeyer, Professor Theodor Wedepohl and Fritz Schroeder, and Karl von Lewinski among others. A ceremony was held for him in the Assembly Room of the Foreign Office in Berlin officiated by Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann and attended by American Ambassador Jacob Gould Schurman. His widow died in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Bavaria in 1976.

Descendants Through his daughter Edith, he was posthumously a grandfather of three grandchildren: Carol Hutz (b. 1940), who married Dr Wolf Johnssen (divorced), Robert Hutz (b. 1942) who married Diane Dubé, and Eckbert von Bohlen und Halbach (b. 1956),

Honors and awards In 1927, Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Law degree "on the basis of a long, distinguished professional career, and as an expression of international good-will."