Bunsen, Christian Karl Josias, Freiherr von

▪ Prussian diplomat

born August 25, 1791, Korbach, Waldeck [Germany]

died November 28, 1860, Bonn, Prussia

 liberal Prussian diplomat, scholar, and theologian who supported the German constitutional movement and was prominent in the ecclesiastical politics of his time.

      Educated at various German universities in modern, ancient, and Oriental languages, theology, and law, Bunsen followed his mentor, Barthold Georg Niebuhr, to Rome when Niebuhr was appointed Prussian minister to the Vatican in 1816. He succeeded to this post in 1824 and, with his gifted English wife, made the Prussian legation into a centre for the German cultural circle in Rome, where he also helped to found the archaeological institute. His attempt to resolve the conflict between Prussia and the papacy over mixed marriages, however, foundered on Pope Gregory XVI's intransigence, and he was recalled in 1838. After a short interval as minister to Switzerland (1839–41), Bunsen was appointed minister to England, the most important post in the Prussian foreign service at that time. In London he worked for closer cooperation between England and Prussia, supported a German constitution in 1848–49, tried to ease the tension between the two powers over the Schleswig-Holstein issue, and attempted to bring Prussia into the Western alliance after the outbreak of the Crimean War. Conservatives at the Prussian court opposed to an anti-Russian alliance forced his recall in 1854.

      Bunsen published a number of important scientific and religious works. His best-known work, Die Zeichen der Zeit, 2 vol. (1855; Signs of the Times), defended religious and personal freedom at a time when reaction was triumphant in Europe.

* * *