Mirbach becomes ambassador in Moscow

On 2 April 1918 Germany appointed its first diplomatic representative to the Soviet government. It was Count Wilhelm von Mirbach-Harff, an experienced diplomat from a Rhineland aristocratic family. The date of the appointment was established from the files of the German Foreign Office by the historian Winfried Baumgart. The British chronology of the war records it under 9 April, when the German press had already begun to discuss the choice of Mirbach. Formally he held the title of minister, but he was commonly called the ambassador.

A diplomat of the old school

Mirbach knew Russia. In 1908–1911 he was counsellor of the German embassy in St Petersburg, during the war he headed the legation in Athens until the expulsion of the Central Powers’ diplomats in November 1916, and then he was political adviser to the German military administration in occupied Romania. He came into contact with the Bolsheviks after the armistice at Brest-Litovsk was concluded. From the end of December 1917 to 10 February 1918 he headed a German commission in Petrograd which discussed the restoration of trade and the exchange of interned civilians.

The choice aroused controversy. Part of the German press considered that an aristocrat in impeccably tailored clothes was unsuited to talks with revolutionaries. One German periodical called him a “diplomat in creased trousers” and a “rococo count” whose appointment would make victorious Germany ridiculous in the eyes of the Bolsheviks. Kurt Riezler, who was to become counsellor of the legation, defended him against the Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann: Mirbach was skilful and knew how to talk to people of Radek’s kind without breaking off talks, while keeping his distance.

Arrival in Moscow

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of 3 March provided for the resumption of diplomatic relations. The Soviet government had meanwhile moved to Moscow, and from mid-March foreign affairs were directed by Georgy Chicherin. Mirbach arrived in Moscow in the second half of April, on 23 April according to most accounts. His instructions were simple: to support the Bolsheviks, because they were the only significant party in Russia that had accepted the Peace of Brest-Litovsk. At the same time Soviet Russia sent Adolph Joffe, who had led the first Soviet delegation at Brest, to Berlin as its representative.

The first meetings did not bode well. Mirbach reported to the Chancellor that Chicherin received him very cordially, but that during every more serious conversation his deputy Lev Karakhan came out of the next room and listened in. After only two days the atmosphere cooled because of the German advance in Ukraine and the landing in Finland. Mirbach presented his credentials, on 26 April according to most accounts, to the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Yakov Sverdlov. According to his account the ceremony was “of the simplest and iciest”, and Sverdlov did not even ask him to sit down. He met Lenin only in mid-May.

A short mission

The German minister quickly became one of the most important figures in Moscow. He supervised the implementation of the peace terms, prisoner-of-war matters and trade relations, and in time advised Berlin to prepare for the fall of the Bolsheviks. For many Russians he was the symbol of a humiliating peace. On 6 July 1918 he was killed at the legation in an assassination carried out by Yakov Blumkin and Nikolai Andreyev, sent by the Left Socialist-Revolutionary party. It hoped in this way to break the peace with Germany. The assassination gave the signal for the Left SR uprising against Lenin’s government.