Geheimrat was the title of the highest officials of a German royal or principal court. It has its roots in 17th century Europe when governmental administration was established. The English language equivalent is Privy Councillor.

The title disappeared after the destruction of the German Empire in 1918, when the various royal courts in Germany were replaced by the Weimar Republic.

Persons with the title of "Geheimrat":

• Günther Heinrich von Berg
• Benedikt Carpzov
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Otto Adolf Ludwig Intze – Pioneer of dam construction.
• Julius Kühn
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716)
• Raimund von Montecuccoli
• Heinrich Johann Friedrich Ostermann
• Andreas von Rauchbar
• Nicolaus Remy
• Friedrich Julius Heinrich von Soden

Historical reference

The following is copied from I am a Mathematician
about a visit in Germany before WW2
MIT PRESS,p.96

I began my visit to Klein by a social blunder. When the elderly housekeeper appeared at the door, I asked in my best German, "Ist der Herr Professor zu Hause?". She replied in a tone of rebuke, "Der Herr Geheimrat ist zu Hause.". Thus reproaching me for addressing a privy councilor for the lower title of professor. In German science, I may say, the social position of a Geheimrat was like that of a scientist in England who had been knighted; but I have never seen so much fuss made about a knighthood in England, as made in Germany about the title of Geheimrat.

-by Norbert Weiner