This book is a biography of Friedrich August Karl Ferdinand Julius von Holstein (1837-1909), a civil servant of the German Empire who served as the head of the political department of the German Foreign Office for more than thirty years, and who played a major role in shaping foreign policy after Bismarck was dismissed in 1890. It was first published in its English translation in 1933. "FOR close on forty years Baron Friedrich von Holstein exercised an immeasurable influence on Germany's foreign policy, but to the German people he was completely unknown. He lived the life of a hermit. He went nowhere. He took no public part in anything. He had no use for outward 'honours.' "Bismarck, Caprivi, Hohenlohe, Bülow, with one voice proclaimed him 'indispensable,' yet he remains a legend to our generation. His contemporaries admired him, hated, feared him. They nicknamed him 'the Mole,' 'Hyena-Eyes,' 'His Excellency the Spectre.' His policy may have been baleful, the means he used may not always have been fair according to our standards, yet no one can deny his great ability, his outstanding efficiency, his passionate love of country. "The Life of Fritz von Holstein is based on historic events or episodes which took place in the circles surrounding the recluse, so selected as to throw his unique personality into relief."—Joachim von Kürenberg