KURT, COUNT VON, FREIHERR VON KRAPPITZ (17 5 2-183 2 ), Prussian statesman, was born on June i 1, 1752, at Peucke near Ols. In 1791 he was elected by the Silesian estates general director of the province. At the invitation of Frederick William II. he entered the Prussian service, became ambassador at Vienna in 1792 and a member of the cabinet at Berlin.
Haugwitz, who had attended the young emperor Francis II. at his coronation and been present at the conferences held at Mainz to consider the attitude of the German powers towards the Revo lution, was at first opposed to intervention in France, but even tually entered on the negotiations for the subsidy treaty between Great Britain and Prussia, and Great Britain and Holland, signed at The Hague on April 1794. Haugwitz, however, was not the man to direct a strong and aggressive policy; and in October the denunciation by Great Britain of The Hague treaty broke the last tie that bound Prussia to the Coalition. The separate treaty with France, signed at Basle on April 5, 1795, was mainly due to the influence of Haugwitz.
No guarantee of the retention of the Rhine provinces of the Empire had been inserted in the Basle treaty; but Haugwitz and the king hoped to preserve them by establishing the armed neu trality of North Germany and securing its recognition by the French republic. This policy was rendered futile by the victories of Napoleon Bonaparte and the virtual conquest of South Germany by the French. Haugwitz recognized this fact, and in vain urged Frederick William III. to join the new Coalition in 1798. When the king refused his urgent advice to demand the evacuation of Hanover by the French in 1803, he offered to resign, and in Aug. 1804 he was replaced by Hardenberg. In his retire ment Haugwitz was still consulted, and used his influence against Hardenberg's policy of a rapprochement with France. He was recalled, as Hardenberg's colleague in the foreign office, in 1805. He pursued a vacillating policy, and was definitely worsted by Napoleon. The ultimatum he was to have conveyed to the French emperor was never delivered. Instead he signed the treaties of Schonbrunn (Dec. 15, 18o5) and Paris (Feb. 15, 1806), which gave Hanover to Prussia in return for Ansbach, Cleves and Neuchatel. The Prussian ultimatum to Napoleon was eventually forced upon him, and with the battle of Jena (Oct. 14), his politi cal career came to an end.
The last eleven years of his life were spent in Italy, and he died in Venice on Feb. 9, 183 2. During his retirement in Italy he wrote memoirs in justification of his policy, a fragment of which dealing with the episode of the treaty of Schonbrunn was published at Jena in 1837.
See L. von Ranke, Hardenberg u. d. Gesch. des preuss. Staates (Leipzig, 1879-81) , note on Haugwitz's memoirs in vol. ii. ; Denk wurdigkeiten des Staatskanzlers Fisrsten von Hardenberg, ed. Ranke (5 vols., Leipzig, .