German Ambassador Research Articles

Espionage, sabotage, Propaganda. German military attachés in neutral countries and their organisation and tasks during the first World war

ABSTRACT At the beginning of the 20th Century, military attachés were the most important source of intelligence for the Prussian General Staff. Their primary tasks were to observe the land forces of their host country and to provide military advice to the German ambassador or envoy. With the beginning of the First World War, a profound change in the attachés’ functions set in. While the German military diplomats had to be recalled from Great Britain, France and Russia, the attachés in hitherto insignificant neutral countries gained enormously in importance. As ‘active agents of war’, they were henceforth responsible for espionage, sabotage and covert operations to damage the Entente’s war effort. The contribution traces this change using the examples of the German military attachés in Spain and Switzerland.

Первые визиты писателей ФРГ в СССР

The first trips of West German writers to the Soviet Union after 1955 are practically not highlighted in the research literature. The article relies on RGALI documents: letters of German writers and reports made by their translators for the Soviet Writers’ Union. Establishing official contacts with West German writers became the main direction of Soviet literary policy in the post-war period. Before 1955, when diplomatic relations between the FRG and the USSR began, the writers of West Germany did not come to the USSR. The Foreign Commission of the Soviet Writers’ Union had insufficient information about contemporary German literature: new authors and their works, new literary groups, and artistic trends were not known in the USSR. The first West German guests of the Soviet Writers’ Union were little-known authors and journalists, as well as writers who sympathized with the USSR. In 1959, two famous West German authors, Heinrich Böll and Stefan Andres, were invited to the Third USSR Writers’ Congress. Böll refused the invitation, and Andres came to the USSR unofficially. In Moscow, Andres succeeded in meeting with the German Ambassador to the USSR to touch upon cooperation between West German and Soviet writers. Hermann Kasack, one of the most prominent German writers, was also in Moscow in the autumn of 1959, at the invitation of his son, an employee of the German embassy, and took part in the organization of the first Moscow delegation to the FRG in 1960.

ПОЛПРЕДСТВО АДОЛЬФА ИОФФЕ: КРИЗИСНЫЙ МЕНЕДЖМЕНТ МЕЖДУ МОСКВОЙ И БЕРЛИНОМ В ИЮЛЕ 1918 Г.

The article puts into scientific use the materials of the Soviet Embassy in Berlin which was opened according to Brest peaceful treaty and operated since April till November 1918. Lack of reliable telegraph connection led to substantial volume of correspondence between A. Ioffe and V. Lenin together with G. Chicherin who determined the Soviet foreign policy. In the chaotic process of formation the Bolshevik political regime the relationship between them went far outside the framework of departmental subordination, and Ioffe cut off from Moscow had to repeatedly assume strategic decisions. Owing to diplomatic blockade of the Soviet Russia his activity fell outside the scope of his duties as an envoy, in his reports he gave the general analysis of German internal economic and military situation, supported close contacts with local left socialists and supervised Soviet foreign propaganda. After count Mirbach, German ambassador, was killed in Moscow 6 July 1918, it was Ioffe who was able to prevent violent political unrest in Soviet-German relationship which threatened to resume military operations between two countries.

News in Astronomy & Geophysics – June 2023

... The first UK winner of the new Caroline Herschel Medal received the award in a ceremony held at the residence of the German Ambassador, Miguel Berger, on 13 April 2023. Prof. Gillian Wright, Director of the UK Astronomy Technology Centre, received the award for her outstanding work in developing instrumentation, notably in infrared astronomy, and most recently leading the international consortium that built the Mid-Infrared Instrument, MIRI, for the James Webb Space Telescope. At the ceremony, Prof. Wright received the medal and award from Professor Stefanie Walch-Gassner, incoming President of the Astronomische Gesellschaft, then gave a very well-received address on the power of technology to reveal the hidden infrared universe. She shared with the audience her first-hand account of the design and development of the Webb telescope, stressing the unique contribution that MIRI is already making to our understanding of the universe. The Caroline Herschel Medal is a new award funded by the UK government to recognise outstanding women astrophysicists in the UK and Germany. It is administered jointly by the Royal Astronomical Society and the Astronomische Gesellschaft, with the medal awarded in the UK and Germany in alternate years. bit.ly/3oPo7Xn

Why Jewish Refugees Were Imprisoned in a Spanish Detention Camp while Fleeing Europe (1940–1945)

One route out of continental Europe for Jewish refugees seeking to escape Nazi and Vichy persecution was via Franco’s Spain. Yet hundreds of these refugees were imprisoned soon after arriving in the country. From prison, men of military age tended to be sent to a detention camp for weeks, months or up to three years. This camp was known as the ‘Campo de Concentración de Miranda de Ebro’, and conditions in it were harsh. Why were Jewish men sent there? They were interned in the camp because senior Spanish officials created a series of policies that spelt out what officials and officers should do with different categories of foreigners who had entered the country without all the necessary documents. These policies did not target Jews. They were influenced by large population movements within France and from France into Spain; by the pro-Axis and pro-Allies leanings of senior officials; and by pressure that the British, American and German ambassadors in Madrid put on the Spanish government. Between September 1940 and January 1943, the policy determined that provincial governors were responsible for deciding what to do with newly arrived foreigners. Provincial governors’ membership in the Falange, a Germanophile party, may have influenced their decisions. While interned in the camp, many Jewish refugees saw their visas to their final destinations and boat tickets out of Europe expire, and they endured hunger, illness, separation from their family and other conditions that were detrimental to their health.

Mobilizing the Past: Germany and the Second World War in Debates on Brexit

In 2018 the outgoing German ambassador to the UK, Peter Ammon, suggested that a sense of national identity based on how Britain had “stood alone” during the Second World War, combined with a negative perception of Germany’s supposed domination of the EU, had fuelled Euroscepticism and contributed to the success of the Leave campaign in the 2016 Brexit referendum. While recognising that references to Britain’s wartime past and fears of German power in the present-day EU are by no means identical issues, this article traces the frequent convergence of these two themes in Eurosceptic rhetoric during the decade preceding Britain’s exit from the EU on 31 January 2020.It reveals that concerns about Germany’s “domination” of the European project, an important theme in British Euroscepticism since Thatcher, resurfaced in the early 2010s, particularly in the context of the Eurozone debt crisis. The Second World War was subsequently a frequent point of historical reference during debates on Brexit, primarily though not exclusively among Eurosceptics. While specifically anti-German uses of the Second World War were less common during the 2016 referendum campaign, they re-emerged with particular bitterness during the difficult post-referendum negotiations.

German institutional aid to Spanish students in Germany during the Second World War

During the Second World War Dr. Edith Faupel intensively helped the Spanish students and soldiers of the Blue Division, the unit that fought in Russia within the Wehermacht troops. She was the wife of the first German Ambassador in the National Spain, General Wilhelm Faupel (1936–1937). Faupel was the director of The Iberian-American Institute and of the German-Spanish Society at a time. She and her husband fully served the regime of the National Socialists during its existence in Germany. The action of this woman and her motifs are studied in this article. It is also analysed how her activities were determined by the changes on the fronts of World War II.

„Dél-Amerika Elzász-Lotaringiája”: A bolíviai–perui–chilei és az argentin–chilei határviták tükröződése a német titkos katonai-diplomáciai iratokban a 19. század végén, a 20. század első három évtizedében

The Pacific War of 1879–1883 (Guerra del Pacífico), also referred to as the “Nitrate War,” was one of the most significant wars in South American history. The territorial changes and power shifts brought about by the war have become sources of severe tensions and are, in many respects, the glowing embers of conflict today. While Chile has achieved its main economic and political goals, neither the peace treaty with Peru nor the armistice in Bolivia has been able to ensure future peace on the Pacific coast. Peru was forced to give up a signifi cant part of its coast, while Bolivia lost its entire ocean coast. Along with Paraguay, Bolivia thus became the second landlocked country in South America. The Pacific War, but even more so the treaties wanting to end it, that is the precarious status of the Peruvian provinces of Tacna and Arica and the Bolivian corridor, were all sources of constant tension („Alsace-Lorraine” in South America). Following the Pacific War, South American lines of power were rearranged and replaced by a new power system with two opposing rival countries, Chile and Argentina. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the two countries drift ed to the brink of war. Argentina professed the principle that in the Andes, the final boundary is formed by the lines connecting the “highest peaks” in crow’s flight while Chile professed the “watershed” principle. The adoption of the Chilean “divortium aquarum” line would have led to Chile receiving territories from southern Patagonia, with access to the Fireland in the south, and thus to the Atlantic Ocean. If the Argentine position prevailed, that is, the principle of “highest peaks,” Argentina would have acquired access to the Pacific and, thus, become a country with two oceanic coasts. In our study, the question of “Alsace-Lorraine in South America” was based on German secret-confidential reports, i.e. primary sources used in our research in German archives: Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv Freiburg, Zentrales Staatsarchiv (ZSP), Politisches Archiv des Auswärtiges Amts, Bonn, Bundesarchiv Koblenz. In the study, special attention is paid to the secret military policy report of 1905 by Captain Behncke, the German cruise commander of the “SMS Falke,” and the confidential reports of the German ambassador to Santiago, von Erckert, from 1911. While analysing the threat of war between Chile and Peru, the Tacna-Arica issue in German confidential diplomatic sources in the 1920s, we came across a particularly surprising piece of information: the Chilean government’s secret plan to resettle two thousand German men in 1926. The military policy report of Emden’s German training cruiser commander, Captain Foerster, on the “Peruvian card” from 1927, sheds light on some interesting aspects of contemporary German diplomacy. The role of the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy in the Peruvian-Chilean conflict in the reports of the German Consul General in Santiago, Soehring, from 1928, provides insight into the South American game of Washington and London. Ambassador von Olshausen’s reports in Santiago on the Tacna-Arica issue, from 1928, and the tense relations between the United States and Chile may provide the reader with entirely new information. At the end of the Tacna-Arica talks in Chile, General Wilhelm Heye, Commander-in-Chief of the Reichsheer, took part in the Chilean military exercises in March 1929. German diplomatic sources also testify that, after the successful conclusion of the Tacna-Arica negotiations in 1929, the Chilean side considered nominating the Chilean President General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo for a Nobel Peace Prize, formally based on a German nomination.

Cavafy and Niketas Choniates: a possible source for ‘Waiting for the barbarians’

This article suggests that a possible source of inspiration for Cavafy's poem ‘Waiting for the barbarians’ can be identified in a passage of the Byzantine historian Niketas Choniates concerning the arrival of German ambassadors at the court of Alexios III in Constantinople in 1196. The context of diplomacy, the city's decadent atmosphere, the emperor's self-humiliation and the unsuccessful ostentation of luxury and royal attire are prominent features linking both texts.

Ten Global Challenges to Europe's Foreign Policy – Concluding Remarks at the Dahrendorf Symposium 2016

Ten Global Challenges to Europe's Foreign Policy – Concluding Remarks at the Dahrendorf Symposium 2016

Murder & Counterrevolution in Mexico: The Eyewitness Account of German Ambassador Paul Von Hintze, 1912–1914 ed. by Friedrich E. Schuler

Murder & Counterrevolution in Mexico: The Eyewitness Account of German Ambassador Paul Von Hintze, 1912–1914 ed. by Friedrich E. Schuler

Gustav Meissners rolle i den såkaldte nytårskrise 1940-41

Jesper Düring Jørgensen: The role of Gustav Meissner in the so-called New Year crisis
 The article looks at the role of the German press attaché Gustav Meissner (1910–1995) during the so-called New Year crisis, which unfolded between the German occupying administration and the Danish government from December 1940 to the end of January 1941. The crisis started in autumn 1940 as a reaction to the unsuccessful monetary and customs union negotiations between Germany and Denmark, and as a result of the Danish Nazi party’s failed propaganda offensive. Another factor that contributed to exacerbating the crisis around Christmas 1940 was a protracted attack on Prime Minister Thorvald Stauning, with the intention of removing him from his post as prime minister of Denmark. In addition, conflicts of interest and expectations regarding the occupation of Denmark existed both at the German Federal Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt) and at the German Embassy in Copenhagen. In Copenhagen, the German ambassador Cecil von Renth-Fink tried to implement a pragmatic policy towards the Danish Government to ensure the greatest possible peace and order in the country for the safety of the German troops, and to safeguard the Danish agricultural and industrial exports to Germany, but in Berlin this policy was subtly opposed by the powerful Under Secretary Martin Luther and by his henchman at the embassy in Copenhagen, Gustav Meissner, who, partly behind Renthe-Fink’s back but with the assistance of Louis von Kohl, initiated several intrigues to topple the prime minister in Copenhagen. However, the demands to replace Stauning met with widespread opposition from the Danish government and the trade unions, and the crisis petered out. Stauning remained at his post, but party leader Hans Hedtoft and H. C. Hansen were forced out of office by the Germans.

Nationalities Factor in the Activities of Intelligence Agencies in Switzerland during World War I

In the course of the First World War, ‘the nationalities question’ exploded in Eastern Europe.By the fall of 1918, the Eastern Europe of the three empires had collapsed, and national stateswere rising. During the war, the nationalities question as perceived in Switzerland, a neutralcountry, had developed from an initial concern about the loyalty of the minorities in the borderlandsof the three East European empires into a battle royal for recognition as individualstates. The article focuses on the activities of the German ambassador in Bern who was themost active force in the development, and he gave special support for the nationalities onRussia’s western border. Poland’s future quickly became the major issue but this threatenedGermany’s own ambitions in Eastern Europe. The Lithuanians and the Ukrainians particularlyopposed Polish dreams of establishing a large state. The Germans, however, considered thefuture of Ukraine to lie mostly in the hands of the Austrian Empire, and therefore Lithuaniaappeared to be the more promising force to limit any new Polish state. Key Words: First World War, intelligence, Switzerland, Polish Question, national minorities. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15181/ahuk.v31i0.1201

Glass, Hildrun Deutschland und die Verfolgung der Juden im rumnischen Machtbereich 1940–1944 (review)

SEER, 93, 4, OCTOBER 2015 780 Western world. One hopes that misprints like ‘the 70th birthday of Stalin in 1950’ (as it appears on p. 148) instead of 1949 or Tarangog (p. 139) instead of Taganrog will be corrected in the paperback edition. Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main Alexey Tikhomirov Glass, Hildrun. Deutschland und die Verfolgung der Juden im rumänischen Machtbereich 1940–1944. R. Sudosteuropäische Arbeiten, 152. Oldenbourg, Munich, 2014. 303 pp. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Indexes. €44.95. The name of Hildrun Glass is synonymous with the forensic analysis of the fate of the Jews in Romania in the three decades following the end of the First World War. Her study on the Jewish experience between 1944 and 1949 (Minderheit zwischen zwei Diktaturen, Munich 2002) established itself as the essential work of reference on this topic and it is no surprise that this new study should be based on the same rigorous dedication to research. ThethemeofthisbookistheinteractionbetweenNaziGermanyandRomania in the development and implementation of the ‘solution to the Jewish question’ in the respective countries and in the areas which the German and Romanian regimes controlled. Dr Glass identifies three stages in this interaction in the period 1940–44: congruence, 1940–41; divergence, 1942; and disagreement 1943/1944. The Holocaust in Romania was unlike that in other parts of Europe and the Soviet Union. In the first place, the mass murder of Jews by shooting in Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in 1941, was carried out by the Romanian authoritiesunderIonAntonescu’smilitarydictatorship,atatimewhenRomania was a sovereign German ally. A congruence of German and Romanian policies can be identified in General Ion Antonescu’s policy of ‘ethnic purification’. Yet Antonescu acted upon his own initiative in resolving the ‘Jewish question’ (the term employed in official Romanian discourse of the time) and did not act under pressure from Berlin. Expulsion of the Jews from Romania was the tool for policy implementation; Mihai Antonescu — the vice-premier but no relation to the General — made this clear at a cabinet meeting over which he presided on 17 June 1941, only a few days before the German-Romanian attack on the Soviet Union. Second, the deaths of Jews at the hands of the Romanians were the result not only of systematic killing, but also of deportation in 1941 and its consequences. Third, Romania’s ‘Jewish policy’ was independent of Germany in the sense that Antonescu acted of his own volition regarding the Jews, but in a context established by Nazi domination of continental Europe. Thus, in the summer of 1942 Antonescu changed his mind about acceding to German requests that REVIEWS 781 the remaining Jewish population of Romania — from the Banat, southern Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia — be deported to the death camps in Poland. Here we have Dr Glass’s ‘divergence’ stage. Antonescu’s about-turn on deportation may be seen as opportunism but it was an opportunism that saved the remaining Jews of Romania from death camps in Poland. Had the Iron Guard still been in power in Romania, there is no doubt that it would have acceded to the German request to implement the Final Solution. One can only speculate on whether events on the battlefield in November 1942 led Marshal Antonescu to modify his position on deportation. He was astute enough to realize that a short war against the Soviet Union offered the best chance of a victory. After the crushing defeat of the Axis armies at Stalingrad — where two German armies and two Romanian armies were decimated before the German Sixth Army was encircled — Antonescu became concerned that he would have to answer to the Allies for his actions. In mid December 1942, with an eye to ingratiating himself with the Western powers, Antonescu decided that the solution to the ‘Jewish problem’ in Romania was emigration rather than deportation — the stage of ‘disagreement’. On 12 December, Manfred von Killinger, the German ambassador to Romania, informed the German Foreign Ministry that Radu Lecca, the Romanian official responsible for Jewish affairs, had received instructions from Antonescu to organize ‘the emigration of 75,000 to 80,000 Jews to Palestine and Syria’. The only condition for emigration was payment by each emigrant of 200,000 lei. Despite...

Under special surveillance: Italy through German eyes, 1975–76

A new document found in Willy Brandt's personal correspondence provides a particularly important insight into German views on Italy in the mid-1970s. The document is a report on Italy's political and economic situation, signed by the former German ambassador in Rome, Rolf Lahr, on 15 December 1975. This article first illustrates the portrait of Italy painted by Lahr. It then contextualizes the document, by explaining why Lahr's analysis may in places seem influenced by his perception of his country, the Federal Republic of Germany. Finally, it argues that Lahr's report was also reflecting a narrative that, as the following G7 summit of Puerto Rico, in June 1976, clearly demonstrated, had wider political implications for German attitudes towards Italy. All of a sudden, West Germany seemed to have moved to the side of the ‘watchers’, while Italy was considered once again a ‘problem’ for European and international politics.

Bismarck’s Don Quixotes of Legitimacy: The Dynastic Diplomacy of Prince Reuss and General Schweinitz

Otto von Bismarck is often seen as the classic “great man” in history who single-handedly united Germany through his ruthless application of Realpolitik. This focus on his apparently unchallenged and unprincipled conduct of foreign policy has tended to overshadow the significant contributions made by his collaborators to this success and the importance of conservative ideology as a factor in the conduct of diplomacy during the Bismarck era. A closer look at the careers of the two most important German ambassadors during the early Imperial period reveals the important role they played in Bismarck’s foreign policy triumphs. Heinrich VII Prince Reuss and General Hans Lothar von Schweinitz were not only the most influential German diplomats of that age, their commitment to conservative/legitimist principles made them at times the harshest critics and most dangerous rivals of their leader. What has until now been entirely overlooked is how closely they worked with one another to pursue a course in international affairs that did not always align with official policy and their instructions from Berlin. Their partnership and collaboration from 1871–1892 in working to preserve the existing social and political order in Eastern and Central Europe was unique in both its effectiveness and duration, although it was ultimately unsuccessful in achieving its ambitious goal of preserving the political and social status quo in Europe. This analysis explores the often volatile relationship of these men to Bismarck, their personal and professional alliance, and the conservative agenda they attempted to promote jointly as ambassadors to Vienna and St. Petersburg for over two decades.

Prince Lichnowsky’s memorandum as a source for determining the responsibility for the outbreak of the First World War

Prince Karl Max Lichnowsky was a German ambassador in London from 1912 to 1914. He was one of the most important direct participants of the July Crisis which led to the outbreak of the First World War. This document was written in 1916 and secretly delivered to the German military and political supreme authorities. It came into possession of Swedish socialists and they published it, first in English and then in all other European languages. This document explicitly attributes the responsibility for the outbreak of the war to the German political and social circles. It accuses them of instigating Austria- Hungary to attack Serbia. The Germans declined and undermined solemn interventions to evade the war. Also, this document briefly describes the German imperialistic politics in the decade before the War and indicates that these politics have inevitably led to the confrontation with Great Britain, Russia and France. Assassination in Sarajevo is indicated as a motive but little attention is paid to it (Gavrilo Princip is not even mentioned at all). During the Paris Peace Conference (in Versailles), this document was used as one of the important arguments to declare Germany guilty of starting the war. Western press wrote a great deal about it and it was given a lot of credit. Also, this memorandum was often disputed during the debate in German politics and historiography in the 1920s and the 1930s on the war accountability (Kriegsschuldsfrage), but it was often quoted by German opponents.

Ein vergessenes Kapitel jüdischer Diplomatie: Richard Lichtheim in den Botschaften Konstantinopels (1913–1917)

AbstractThis article deals with Richard Lichtheim’s (1885–1963) successful diplomatic negotiations on behalf of the persecuted Jewish community in Palestine during the First World War. Between 1913 and 1917 the Berlin-born emissary represented the Zionist Organization in Constantinople. Here, his top priority eventually became to win the political support of the Great Powers in order to protect the Yishuv against the harassment of the Turkish authorities, who occasionally threatened the existence of the Jewish settlements in Palestine. Thanks to Lichtheim’s relentless efforts, both the German Reich and the United States repeatedly exerted their influence on the Sublime Porte and thus prevented the expulsion of the Jewish population of Palestine. This article sheds light on a forgotten chapter of Jewish diplomacy. It introduces Richard Licht­heim as an important policymaker during the First World War and shows how he succeeded in winning over both the German and American ambassadors as influential advocates for the Jewish community in Palestine.

Authorship and Propaganda: Phyllis Bottome and the Making of The Mortal Storm (1940)

The Mortal Storm (1940) was MGM’s powerful contribution to the anti-nazi ‘genre’ film. Adapted from a novel by the British writer Phyllis Bottome, the studio took some risks in producing a picture in which Germany was mentioned by name and in which the controversial political questions aroused by Nazi persecution of liberals, intellectuals and Jews were clearly represented. Bottome herself was an experienced propagandist, having been trained by John Buchan during World War One, and, during the Second World War, she was briefed by the Ministry of Information for propagandist purposes. Bottome was passionately engaged firstly with pushing the Hollywood studios to film her novel and then, once MGM bought the film rights, she tried hard to prevent the message of her book from being watered down by the studio. Simultaneously, she undertook an exhausting lecture tour though America in which she engaged her audiences with warnings about the Nazi regime’s behaviour in Germany. Bottome had lived for many years in Austria and then in Munich so, arguably more than any other woman writer of the period, she had seen first hand the reality of fascism. Her novel, The Mortal Storm (1937) had been a best-seller both had been in the UK and the USA, and the sell-out lecture tour guaranteed good audiences for the film. Although rarely taught on university film courses, where Chaplin’s The Great Dictator is more usually the token anti-nazi film discussed, The Mortal Storm challenged America’s isolationist position and was regarded with alarm by the German ambassador in Washington as an effective and dangerous piece of propaganda.

A Nazi Diplomat Turned Apologist for Apartheid: Gustav Sonnenhol, Vergangenheitsbewaltigung and West German Foreign Policy towards South Africa

This article examines continuities in the personnel of the German foreign office by focusing on the case of Dr Gustav Adolf Sonnenhol, a German diplomat before and after 1945. A member of the Nazi Party and the SS, Sonnenhol served as German vice-consul in North Africa and headed the department Inland II B of the Auswartiges Amt (in charge of liaison with the SD). Exonerated by denazification, he continued his career in government, first in the ministry of the Marshall Plan, then once again in the foreign service. By 1968 he had become the West German ambassador to South Africa. The article analyses how Sonnenhol represented West Germany at the Cape at a time when international protests against the policy of apartheid forced West Germany to modify its policy toward South Africa in the late 1960s. While the process of social liberalization and generational change was in full swing in West Germany, the country embarked on a process of confrontation with Germany's colonial past and racism toward black Africa. Changing attitudes toward (South) Africa resulted in social and political conflict. Sonnenhol, like many Germans of his generation, remained trapped in colonial stereotypes, exacerbating the generational tensions within the foreign ministry. Ultimately, the foreign ministry of Willy Brandt could not free itself of an old guard of Nazi diplomats. As chancellor, Brandt was also unwilling to take a strong stand against the apartheid regime, which had powerful supporters in West Germany.