Edmund Weesenmayer ( German: Edmund Veesenmayer ; November 12, 1904 , Bad Kissingen , German Empire - December 24, 1977 , Darmstadt , Germany ) - German politician.
| Edmund Weesenmayer | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edmund veesenmayer | ||||||
 | ||||||
| Date of Birth | November 12, 1904 | |||||
| Place of Birth | Bad Kissingen , German Empire | |||||
| Date of death | December 24, 1977 (73 years old) | |||||
| Place of death | Darmstadt , Germany | |||||
| Affiliation |  German Empire Weimar Republic Third Reich Germany | |||||
| Type of army |  SS troops | |||||
| Rank | Brigadeführer | |||||
| Awards and prizes |
| |||||
Biography
He was the son of a teacher at a real school in Oberstaufen, where the family moved in 1910 . In 1923-1926 he studied social and political sciences in Munich , and from 1926 he studied at the doctoral program . In 1928 he received a doctorate in socio-political sciences and became an assistant professor at the Munich Technical University and the Berlin School of Economics. In 1932 he met Wilhelm Keppler and joined the NSDAP (membership card No. 873780), where he dealt with economic issues. Since April 1934, he became Keppler’s referent, thanks to which he established relations with influential representatives of the business community. In June 1934 he also joined the SS (personal number 202122).
On September 13, 1936, Wesenmeier was awarded the rank of SS Untersturmfuhrer , and on January 30, 1937, the rank of Obersturmfuhrer .
In July 1937, Keppler became the leader of the preparation of the Anschluss . As his deputy, Weesenmeier played a major role in the removal of Austrian Gauleiter Josef Leopold from power. November 9 became the SS Hauptsturmfuhrer . In February 1938, at the invitation of Joachim von Ribbentrop, he joined the German Imperial Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the rank of envoy. From March to June he again worked as a referent for Keppler, who became the imperial commissar of Vienna . March 12, promoted to Standartenführer SS. Soon became a member of the board of Vienna joint-stock companies Donauchemie AG and Länderbank AG [1] .
In November 1938 - March 1939, on behalf of Ribbentrop, he traveled several times to Bratislava with mediation and intelligence purposes. Disagreeing with Arthur Seyss-Inquart and Joseph Burkel , he insisted on the candidacy of Josef Tiso as the future head of the puppet government of Slovakia . In August 1939 he was sent to Danzig to organize provocations in order to escalate tensions in German- Polish relations. In March 1940 he was involved in the preparation of the uprising in Ireland with the aim of separating it from Great Britain .
In April 1941, he was sent to Zagreb to revitalize Croatian nationalists. After Vladko Machek refused to head the Croatian puppet government, Weesenmeier spoke in favor of Ante Pavelic . In 1941-1942 he came to Serbia and Croatia several times, in particular, to assist in the fight against partisans. Strongly called for the deportation of Serbian Jews . January 22, 1942 received the rank of Oberfuhrer SS. In 1943, he unsuccessfully tried to persuade Joseph Tiso to resume the deportation of Slovak Jews.
In the spring and autumn of 1943 he visited Hungary to study the political situation. He warned Ribbentrop and Hitler about the precariousness of the Hungarian situation and recommended intervening. On March 15, 1944, he became an SS brigadefuhrer, extraordinary and plenipotentiary envoy of the 1st class, and was sent to Hungary as a representative of the Third Reich with unlimited powers [2] , essentially a dictator: it was Weesenmeier who resolved all issues of the civil administration in the country, and Admiral Horthy and his government left only purely representative functions.
On April 9, Hitler, Ribbentrop, and Weesenmeier talked about protecting Germany’s economic interests in Hungary [3] .
On June 13, Weesenmeier sent a telegram to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which said: "From the Carpathians and from Transylvania ... 289,357 Jews were removed in 92 trains of 45 wagons each" [4] . On June 15, in a telegram addressed to Ribbentrop, Weesenmayer reported that at present about 340,000 Jews had been delivered to the Reich, and if there were no disruptions, the number of deported Jews would double by the end of July. He also said that after the number of deported Jews reaches 900,000, the Jewish question will be finally resolved [5] .
In March 1945 he left Hungary and in mid-May surrendered to the Americans in Salzburg . In the case of Wilhelmstrasse, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. On January 31, 1951, US High Commissioner John McCloy softened the sentence for most of the defendants in the case. According to this decision, the term of Weesenmeyer was reduced to 10 years. In December of that year, Weesenmeier was granted amnesty.
In 1953, British intelligence disseminated information about Weesenmeier’s contacts with Nauman’s circle [6] , an organization of former Nazis planning to infiltrate the FDP . Soon after, Weesenmeier headed the German representative office of the French company Pennel & Flipo and until his death lived in Darmstadt.
Rewards
- Cross “For Military Merit” 2nd and 1st grade with swords
- Knight's Cross of the Cross "For Military Merit" with swords (1944)
- Medal "For the length of service in the CC" 4th and 3rd degree
In the literature
- He is one of the characters in the novel " Alternative " (1973) from the cycle about the Soviet scout Stirlitz writer Julian Semenov .
Notes
- ↑ Robert Wistrich, Wer war wer im Dritten Reich, Frankfurt / M. 1993, S. 364.
- ↑ Michael Wildt, Generation des Unbedingten, Hamburg 2003, S. 714.
- ↑ Bundesarchiv (Hrsg.), Europa unterm Hakenkreuz, Band 6, Berlin 1992, S. 320.
- ↑ Zitat bei Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Zweite aktualisierte Auflage, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , S. 638.
- ↑ Bundesarchiv (Hrsg.), Europa unterm Hakenkreuz, Band 6, Berlin 1992, S. 331.
- ↑ Ernst Klee, Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich, Frankfurt / Main 2003, S. 638, Quelle BAK N 1080/273.
Literature
- Conze, Eckart; Frei, Norbert; Hayes, Peter; Zimmermann, Moshe . Das Amt und die Vergangenheit. Deutsche Diplomaten im Dritten Reich und in der Bundesrepublik. - München: Karl Blessing Verlag, 2010 .-- ISBN 978-3-89667-430-2 .
- Matic, Igor-Philip. Edmund Veesenmayer. Agent und Diplomat der nationalsozialistischen Expansionspolitik. - Oldenbourg, 2002. - ISBN 3-486-56677-6 .