METTERNICH, PRINCE KLEMENS WENZEL VON°

METTERNICH, PRINCE KLEMENS WENZEL VON ° (1773–1859), Austrian statesman. A supporter of Jewish rights in the German Confederation and abroad – although in Austria itself he did little for the Jews – at the Congress of Vienna he consistently supported the liberal policy of Karl August von *Hardenberg and Wilhelm *Humboldt (see Congress of *Vienna). He repeatedly warned the senate of *Frankfurt on the Main not to infringe upon the rights of its Jewish community and sent letters of protest to *Hamburg, *Luebeck, and *Bremen when they deprived their Jewish citizens of their civil rights. During the 1819 *Hep! Hep! riots he cautioned the Frankfurt authorities against letting matters get out of control. Metternich ordered his diplomatic agents to reveal France's complicity in the 1840 Damascus *blood libel affair. A frequenter of the sophisticated Jewish salons of Vienna, he associated, for business and pleasure, with the patrician Jewish banking families to such a degree that the *Rothschilds were suspected of aiding his escape from revolutionary *Vienna in 1848. His right-hand man, Friedrich von Gentz, was also sympathetic to Jewish causes.

bibliography:

M.J. Kohler, Jewish Rights at the Vienna Congress (1918), index; S. Baron, Die Judenfrage auf dem Wiener Kongress (1920), index; N.M. Gelber, Aktenstuecke zur Judenfrage am Wiener Kongress (1920); idem, in: jjlg, 18 (1926), 217–64; I. Kracauer, Geschichte der Juden in Frankfurt a. M., 2 (1927), 498–521; M. Gruenwald, Vienna (1936), index. add. bibliography: E. Timms, in: ylbi 46 (2001), 3–18; N. Ferguson, ibid., 19–54.