Carl von Bismarck


Carl-Eduard Otto Wolfgang Jayme Anders von Bismarck-Schönhausen, often known as "Calle" von Bismarck, is a German politician. He served as a member of the Bundestag from 2005 to 2007. A member of the princely House of Bismarck, he succeeded his father as the 5th Prince of Bismarck in 2019.

Background and education

Born in Zurich, Switzerland, Bismarck is a member of the princely House of Bismarck and the son of the lawyer and landowner Ferdinand von Bismarck and the Belgian countess Elisabeth Lippens; his father became the Prince of Bismarck in 1975. Carl-Eduard von Bismarck is a grandson of the CDU politician Otto Christian Archibald, Prince von Bismarck; the great-grandson of Herbert, Prince von Bismarck; and the great-great-grandson of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who received the hereditary style of Serene Highness in 1890.
He is also a great-grandson of the Swedish architect Ivar Tengbom and of the Belgian politician, Count Maurice Lippens, and a descendant of the English engineer Robert Whitehead. Of his eight great-grandparents, only Herbert von Bismarck was German, while his other ancestors were Belgian, Swedish, English and Hungarian. He is known under the nickname "Calle", a Swedish diminutive of Carl.
After receiving his Abitur in 1982, von Bismarck completed his two years of military service at the Bismarck Kasern in Wentorf, West Germany.
In 1985, von Bismarck concluded his training in capital markets investing at Citibank and worked for Shearson Lehman in New York. In 1988 he received his bachelor's degree in international business from UCLA. In 1989 he was requested by his father to return to West Germany. Between 1989 and 1992, he worked for the company Investor Treuhand in Düsseldorf. Since 1993 he has worked for the Princely Bismarck Administration in Friedrichsruh.
From 2003 to 2005 von Bismarck was the founding president of the Federal Association of Economic Development and Foreign Trade, and in 2005 he founded the Bismarck Business Council and Economy. He has also worked as a consultant to Guggenheim Partners, Osborne Partners and APCO.
Von Bismarck was married to Mexican-American actress Laura Harring, Swiss heiress and humanitarian Celia Demaurex, Israeli-born Canadian designer Nathalie Bariman. His current wife is Italo-Brazilian art writer and curator Alessandra Silvestri-Levy. The couple married in 2016.
Von Bismarck has two children with Nathalie Bariman, including the heir apparent to the princely title, Count Alexei von Bismarck, and daughter Countess Grace von Bismarck. Bariman is Jewish, and they married in a Jewish ceremony. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is reported to have told the couple, "You two have united history … the next Prince of Bismarck will be a mix of both religions."

Political career

Bismarck became a member of the CDU in 1995, and was elected vice-chairman of the CDU in Lauenburg in 1999. When Peter Harry Carstensen became Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein, Bismarck replaced him in the Bundestag, the German parliament. In the 2005 federal election, he won his constituency with a plurality of the vote.
He resigned his mandate on 19 December 2007. If he had resigned in January, as planned, he would have been eligible for a pension, inciting more criticism.

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