Heinrich VII, Prince Reuss of Köstritz


Heinrich VII, Prince Reuss of Köstritz was a German diplomat.

Life

Prince Heinrich VII Reuss was born in 1825 as the fifth child and third son of Prince Heinrich LXIII, Prince Reuss of Köstritz and his first wife, Countess Eleonore of Stolberg-Wernigerode. From 1845 to 1848 he studied law at Ruprecht Karls University of Heidelberg and Humboldt University of Berlin. He then joined the 8th Lancers Regiment. From 1853, he pursued a diplomatic career.
From 1854 to 1863 he worked as a diplomat in the Prussian embassy in Paris. Then he was sent as Prussian royal ambassador to Kassel, and later to Munich. On 5 February 1868 he was posted as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the North German Confederation to the Russian court at St. Petersburg by William I, who was still King of Prussia at that time. On 26 April 1871 he was designated the first ambassador of the German Empire by William, who had been crowned Emperor a few months earlier.
From 1873 to 1876 he served Emperor William I as adjutant general. In 1876 he married Princess Marie Alexandrine of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and became a member of the Prussian House of Lords. In 1877, he was the first imperial ambassador to Constantinople, where he opened the magnificent Embassy building, which he was allowed to set up to his own taste. Just one year later he went as German ambassador to Vienna; this was his last foreign assignment.
In 1894, he retired to his castle in Trzebiechów, where he died on 2 May 1906.

Descendants

On 6 February 1876, Heinrich VII married Princess Marie Alexandrine of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, daughter of Grand Duke Charles Alexander of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.
From this marriage, he had the following children: