In 1737 Hatzfeldt entered the civil service of the
Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation as an imperial
chamberlain. After the death of
Charles VI in 1749, he remained in the service of the
Habsburgs and, in 1741, moved to
Prague as a Royal Bohemian
appellate councillor. Until the dissolution of the governorship, he was supernumerary governor and then worked as an assessor of the chamber in Prague. In 1749 Hatzfeldt was appointed a full Privy Councillor. In 1761 he was appointed president of the Court of Appeal in Prague, the German-Hereditary Credit Deputation and the Ministerial Bank Deputation. This appointment meant that he took over the management of the entire Austrian credit system and the supervision of the Vienna City Bank. His task was to reform and unify the state credit and treasury system into a general treasury. Hatzfeldt was also appointed president of the General Treasury Directorate. After the coronation of Emperor
Francis I in 1745, Hatzfeldt worked on the reorganization of state finances and accounting. At his suggestion, changes were made to the state bonds and the cash journals were introduced. On 6 May 1764, he was the first German to be awarded the Grand Cross of the
Order of St. Stephen for his services. In May 1765, Hatzfeldt was appointed President of the
Hofkammer (
Court Chamber), succeeding Count von Herberstein, while retaining his previous offices. After the death of Francis I in 1765, a power struggle broke out between Hatzfeld and the President of the Court Accounts Chamber,
Ludwig von Zinzendorf, in which Hatzfeld sharply attacked Zinzendorf's plan to create a decentralized state bank and a state trading company. On 6 June 1768, Hatzfeldt presented the "peace and war system" for the reorganization of state finances, which was put into effect by
Maria Theresa on 5 May 1769 after fierce resistance from Zinzensdorf. On 1 August 1771, paper money was introduced in implementation of Hatzfeldt's plans. In 1775, the state treasury posted a surplus for the first time. After his appointment as Supreme Chancellor of the Court Chancellery for Austria and Bohemia, Hatzfeldt handed over his other offices to Leopold
Kolowrat in 1771. In the same year, at the suggestion of
Joseph II, Hatzfeldt was appointed acting Minister of State and successor to
Starhemberg. Hatzfeldt's clerical and conservative views proved increasingly incompatible with Joseph's plans for state reform. In 1772 he requested the suspension of negotiations on the abolition of the death penalty and a year later he presented a draft for a system of government based on the retention of Catholicism as the state religion and viewed the feudal court and the wealth of the nobility as the source of national prosperity, where the preservation of the nobility was declared to be the main task of the government. Until his death, Hatzfeldt served as
Minister for Domestic Affairs.
Estates After the death of his father, he inherited the Bohemian dominion of
Dlaschkowitz (known today as "
Dlažkovice") in 1733. He promoted garnet mining in
Podseditz, where he established the settlement of Neugründel in 1773. In 1779, Hatzfeldt had a garnet factory built in Podseditz, thus laying the foundations for the garnet industry in the
Bohemian Central Mountains (known today as "
České Středohoří"). In 1773, he acquired the western Bohemian dominion of
Chlumcan (known today as "
Chlumčany"). == Personal life ==