Ernst von Weizsaecker: Difference between revisions
imported>Howard C. Berkowitz No edit summary |
imported>Howard C. Berkowitz (→WWII) |
||
| Line 10: | Line 10: | ||
| title = Adolf Hitler | | title = Adolf Hitler | ||
}}, p. 464</ref> | }}, p. 464</ref> | ||
Initial information from a report released by the present German Foreign Ministry, in October 2010, shows him supporting [[antisemitism]] in 1938. “The Jews will have to leave Germany, otherwise they will, one way or the other, be simply confronted with their own destruction,” he reportedly told a Swiss ambassador in 1938. He also recommended [[Thomas Mann]] be stripped of German citizenship for writing an anti-Nazi article. <ref name=IrT>{{citation | |||
| url = http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/1025/1224281952030.html | |||
| journal = Irish Times | |||
| author = Derek Scally | |||
| date = 25 October 2010 | |||
| author = German diplomats 'complicit in Holocaust'}}</ref> | |||
==Postwar== | ==Postwar== | ||
Convicted of war crimes in the [[Ministries Case (NMT)]], he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment, but his sentence was commuted after 18 months. He claimed, in his defense, to be a member of the [[German Resistance]]; this is controversial. | Convicted of war crimes in the [[Ministries Case (NMT)]], he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment, but his sentence was commuted after 18 months. He claimed, in his defense, to be a member of the [[German Resistance]]; this is controversial. | ||
Revision as of 19:03, 4 January 2011
Ernst von Weizsaecker (1882 – 1951) was a career German diplomat under the Weimar Republic and the Nazi Party, joining the foreign service in 1920. He rose to the rank of State Secretary of the Reich Foreign Office, serving from 1938 to 1943, at which time he transferred from the role of professional head of the ministry to become Reich Ambassador to the Holy See.
He held the Allegemeine SS rank of Brigadefuehrer.
WWII
He was aware fof the Czech crisis in May 1938, writing that the Western press had humiliated Adolf Hitler in suggesting that he had called off his invasion of Czechoslovakia: "Hiler had embarked on no military enterprise, and thus could not withdraw from one. But unfortunate provocation from the foreign press really set Hitler going. From then on, he was emphatically in favor of settling the Czech question by force of arms."[1]
Initial information from a report released by the present German Foreign Ministry, in October 2010, shows him supporting antisemitism in 1938. “The Jews will have to leave Germany, otherwise they will, one way or the other, be simply confronted with their own destruction,” he reportedly told a Swiss ambassador in 1938. He also recommended Thomas Mann be stripped of German citizenship for writing an anti-Nazi article. [2]
Postwar
Convicted of war crimes in the Ministries Case (NMT), he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment, but his sentence was commuted after 18 months. He claimed, in his defense, to be a member of the German Resistance; this is controversial.
Family
His son, Richard, became postwar President of Germany.