Stein, HEINRICH FRIEDRICH CARL, BARON VOM, Prussian statesman, was born at Nassau on 26th October 1757. He prepared himself for public life at Göttingen (1773-77), and entered the service of Prussia in 1780. In four years he had risen to be the administrative head of the mines in Westphalia, and in 1796 was appointed president of the Westphalian chambers. In 1804 he was summoned to take charge of the department that had the control of the excise, customs, manufactures, and trade; but though he succeeded in getting the restrictions on internal commerce abolished, and effected some minor improvements, he was unable to modify the traditional and favourite methods of governing current in Prussia. At length the king and his minister could no longer work together, and Stein tendered his resignation (January 1807). Whilst living in retirement at Nassau he wrote an essay on administrative reform, in which he outlined the measures which he subsequently carried into effect. After Frederick-William III. had drunk the bitter dregs of his policy in the treaty of Tilsit, he saw no other alternative except to recall the man whom he had so spitefully used, especially as this step was recommended to him by his conqueror Napoleon. Accordingly Stein resumed office before the year ran out. He at once set to work with the swiftest energy, and in little more than a twelvemonth wrought such changes as laid the foundations of Prussia's subsequent greatness. His aim was to root the sovereign power in the hearts and wills of the people, and to make them free and responsible political actors. To this end he promulgated measures which abolished the last relics of serfdom, laid away with the privileges of caste, freed the sale and purchase of land from the rusty shackles of feudalism, created on the lands of the crown a class of peasant proprietors, and abolished all monopolies and other hindrances to free trade. At the same time he framed a scheme of municipal government which liberated the citizens from the military bureaucracies, and he warmly supported Scharnhorst (q.v.) in his schemes of army reform, which converted the Prussian troops into a disciplined body of citizen-soldiers. Other wide-reaching reforms he was unable to carry out himself, because Napoleon, at length realising the character of the man he had recommended, insisted upon his dismissal, and even confiscated his family estates in Westphalia. Stein quitted (November 1808) his post and withdrew to Austria, but not before issuing his Political Testament, a forecast of the changes Prussia needed to undergo. Not feeling himself quite secure in Austria, he accepted an invitation to St Petersburg (1812), and, although he refused to enter the czar's service, he was actively instrumental in cementing the coalition against Napoleon, and in animating the Germans in their final uprising. From the momentous battle of Leipzig to the Congress of Vienna he was the ruling spirit of the opposition against Napoleon. After the congress closed, Stein, who was dissatisfied with its conclusions, gradually withdrew into private life; a period of tranquillity and especially of reaction, like that which soon set in in Prussia, was not suited to a man of his strong and downright character. The principal fruit of his leisure was the establishment (1819) and organisation of the society that has printed the great collection of historical documents known as Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Stein died at his country-seat of Kappenberg in Westphalia on 29th June 1831, the last male of his race, as he left only daughters by his wife, a granddaughter of George II. of England.
See Pertz, Leben des Ministers Freiherrn vom Stein (6 vols. 1849-55); Professor Seeley's Life and Times of Stein (3 vols. Camb. 1878); and the Erinnerungen of General von Boyen (1891).