Ferdinand von Bismarck


Ferdinand Herbord Ivar, Prince of Bismarck was a German landowner and lawyer and the Prince of Bismarck from 1975 to 2019, when he was succeeded by his oldest son Carl von Bismarck in accordance with letters patent of 1871.
He was a godfather of King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands.

Early life

von Bismarck was born in London, the son of politician and diplomat Otto Christian Archibald von Bismarck and Swedish socialite Ann-Mari Tengbom. He was a grandson of statesman Herbert von Bismarck, a great-grandson of statesman Otto von Bismarck, and the maternal grandson of the prominent Swedish architect Ivar Tengbom. He grew up in London, Rome and Sweden, and was educated at the Schule Schloss Salem boarding school. After a few years in Brazil in the early 1950s, where he worked for the German-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, he went on to study law, earning a law degree in 1956. He worked for the European Commission in Brussels for some years, and after 1967 worked as an attorney in Hamburg, based from his home in Friedrichsruh. He also managed his family's estate.

Family life

Bismarck married the Belgian countess Elisabeth Lippens in 1960; she was a granddaughter of the Belgian politician Maurice Lippens. They had four children:
Bismarck had the nominal title of Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen from his birth until the death of his father in 1975, when he succeeded to the title of Prince.
Bismarck was a member of the board of the Otto von Bismarck Foundation and was patron of the Bismarckbund and the Bismarck Order, as well as chairman of the Duchy of Lauenburg Foundation.
Bismarck died on 23 July 2019 at the age of 88.

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