Arnim, Harry Karl Kurt Eduard, Count of

ARNIM, HARRY KARL KURT EDUARD, count. — Prussian diplomat, born at Moitzelfitz (Pomerania) on 3 October 1824, died at Nice on 19 May 1881. From 1853 to 1855 he was legation secretary in Rome, then until 1858 served at the Prussian Foreign Ministry. Promoted in 1859 to first counsellor at the Prussian embassy in Vienna, after two years in the Austrian capital he was appointed to represent the Berlin court in Lisbon, whence in 1864 he went to Munich: In October of the same year he was accredited as the Prussian representative in Rome and, during the Italo-Prussian alliance of 1866, succeeded with great skill in avoiding political complications that might have been raised by the Holy See. In 1868 A. was reconfirmed as minister in Rome representing the North German Confederation. In 1870, during the proceedings of the XX Ecumenical Council, A. displayed feverish activity, though uncertain whether, after the proclamation of papal infallibility, he should advise his government to recall him from Rome. In any event A. remained, behaving ambiguously during the Italian occupation of Rome. For while the rumor spread in Roman circles that Prussia, on A.’s advice, would intervene at Florence in favor of the Holy See, on the morning of 19 September A. had gone to General Cadorna, also attempting to persuade the Pope to yield without offering resistance. Appointed ambassador to Paris in January 1872, he soon had serious disagreements with Bismarck, which led in 1874 to his retirement. The personal rivalry between the two men grew ever more acute, until Bismarck, taking as a pretext the disappearance of certain diplomatic documents from the archives of the Paris embassy, had A. brought to trial. Initially an exile in Switzerland and Italy, A. died at Nice.