250 years ago on May 2nd 1764 , Friedrich Gentz was born in Wroclaw, a journalist, a diplomat and a politician; he was under the influenced by Immanuel Kant while studying at Königsberg in his youth; the events of the revolution in France and reading a book about it written by E. Burke (which he translated into German ) steered him towards (moderate) conservatism; on the pages of the weekly he has founded the Neue deutsche Monatsschrift, then (1799-1800) the Historisches Journal, he advocated the principles of the British constitutionalism and the need to resist the aggressive French republic; he was also the first German publicist who discovered the ideas of American federalists; in a memorandum to the King of Prussia (1797) he advocated freedom of the press and trade; from the beginning of the next century, he was an active promoter of the Triple Alliance of Prussia, Austria and England; from 1809 he passed from the Prussian to the Austrian service (and was ennobled), becoming a trusted advisor to the foreign minister (and since 1821 also the Chancellor) Metternich; he was a secretary at the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) and the Congress of the Holy Alliance in Verona (1822), so he became known as the "Secretary of Europe." He died in 1832.
prof. Jacek Bartyzel
translated by Arek Jakubczyk
