Diplomatic Career
Schulenburg was born in Kemberg, Saxony-Anhalt to Graf Bernhard von der Schulenburg. He studied law in Lausanne, Munich and Berlin after a one-year stint in the military. In 1901, he joined the Foreign Office's consular service as a junior lawyer (Assessor). By 1903, he was already the vice-consul at Germany's consulate general in Barcelona, and in the years that followed, he found himself working at consulates in Lvov, Prague, Warsaw and Tbilisi. With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, von der Schulenburg returned to the military, and after the First Battle of the Marne was promoted to captain in October 1914 and put in charge of an artillery battery. In 1915, he went as German liaison officer to the Ottoman Army on the Armenian Front. In 1916, he took over leadership of the Georgian Legion in the struggle with Russia, until its collapse in 1917. During his time in the military, he received the Iron Cross and some high Turkish honours. After the German Empire's collapse, he was captured by the British and interned on the Turkish island of Prinkipo (now called Büyük Ada), returning to Germany in 1919. Von der Schulenburg returned to the Foreign Office Service and became consul in Beirut.
Baron Schulenburg served as the German ambassador to Persia/Iran from 1922 to 1931 (when his visit to the ancient monuments at Persepolis resulted in his engraving of his name at the Gate of All Nations seen in a photo in here. From 1931 to 1934 he served as the German ambassador to Rumania/Romania before being sent to Moscow as the last German envoy to the Soviet Union before the invasion of that country by Germany.
Read more about this topic: Friedrich Werner Von Der Schulenburg
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