Ribbentrop office

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The Ribbentrop office (until 1935 also the Ribbentrop office ) was, as the party office of the NSDAP, a paradiplomatic institution in National Socialist Germany under the direction of Joachim von Ribbentrop . It served as an informal task force for Adolf Hitler's foreign policy , deliberately bypassing the traditional foreign policy institutions and diplomatic channels of the Foreign Office . But it was also in competition with other party offices that were active in the field of foreign policy, such as the foreign organization of the NSDAP ( NSDAP / AO ), the foreign policy office of the NSDAP and the Volksdeutscher Rat or the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle . With the appointment of Ribbentrop as Reich Foreign Minister in February 1938, a number of the employees of his department followed him to the Foreign Office, while the department itself became less important.

The Ribbentrop office

Headquarters of the Ribbentrop office in Wilhelmstrasse. 64 (in the background) in Berlin (around 1932)

Joachim von Ribbentrop met Hitler in 1932 and joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1932. Hitler believed in the cosmopolitan Ribbentrop, who had mediated between Hitler and Franz von Papen in the run-up to the seizure of power . Reich Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath retained his office under Hitler. But Ribbentrop benefited from Hitler's personal sympathy and his distrust of traditional German diplomacy . Hitler thought Ribbentrop was the right man to implement his ideas of a "dynamic foreign policy" bypassing the Foreign Office.

The Ribbentrop office served this purpose . It was supposed to be active in foreign policy matters that were particularly important to Hitler, bypassing the Foreign Office. It was set up on April 24, 1934, initially with 13 employees, including typists, when Ribbentrop was appointed “Commissioner for Disarmament Issues”. There were also volunteer advisors such as the shipowner and Vice President of the Lower Rhine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Eugen Lehnkering and Gustav Prince Biron von Curland. Since the summer of 1934, the seat has been Wilhelmstrasse 64, opposite the Foreign Office, formerly the seat of the Prussian State Ministry (today the seat of the Federal Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection at Wilhelmstrasse 54), in the same building as the "Liaison Office of the NSDAP", which is part of the " Staff of the Deputy Leader " belonged.

In June 1935, Ribbentrop was not only appointed ambassador to Great Britain , but also promoted by Hitler to head of the NSDAP and confirmed as "Commissioner for Foreign Policy Issues in the Staff of the Deputy Leader". The Office for Foreign Policy Special Issues on the Staff of the Deputy Leader , Ribbentrop Office for short , as the Ribbentrop Office was called since June 1, 1935, was a half-state, half-party-affiliated institution. In fact, the agency was not fully recognized by either the state or the party, while Ribbentrop felt solely responsible to Hitler.

Organization of the Ribbentrop office

Joachim von Ribbentrop in the Uniform of an SS Brigade Leader (1938)

Under the direction of Hermann von Raumer (1893–1977), a former representative of Lufthansa and Mitropa in Russia and East Asia , the office developed into a larger administrative apparatus with 160 employees (as of 1936). It was organized into sections by country. There were separate departments for France , England , Poland , the Baltic States and the USA , and from 1935 also for the Netherlands and Belgium . In addition, a front fighter unit, a press and a colonial unit including South Africa , Australia and New Zealand and various special units were set up.

The criteria for selecting personnel were different from those in the diplomatic service. Above all, Ribbentrop attached great importance to whose relations with foreign countries or in the party promised him the most benefit. That is why international experience, foreign language skills and a winning character were given top priority. Party membership was not a requirement, but membership in the SS was obviously desirable. Because in the absence of a house power in the NSDAP, Ribbentrop had joined the SS early on and sought the protection of Heinrich Himmler . The composition of the predominantly young staff was heterogeneous. Long-serving functionaries of the NSDAP and personal friends of Ribbentrop also belonged to the office. In addition to " old fighters " such as Rudolf Likus and Walter Hewel , Ribbentrop also brought newcomers such as Wilhelm Rodde , Hermann Kügler , Karlfried Graf Dürckheim , Heinrich Georg Stahmer , Otto Abetz and Paul Karl Schmidt (better known as Paul Carell ) into his office or office . The aim was probably also to train politically impeccable National Socialist diplomats.

The agency was apparently financed from four different sources: from funds from the Fuehrer's deputy , from a special Hitler fund, from the budget of the Reich Ministry of Finance and, in 1936, from the so-called " Adolf Hitler donation from the German economy ". The exact amount of the budget can no longer be determined, but is estimated at several million.

activity

Annual festival of the German-English Society in the House of Aviators on February 15, 1939, Karl-Eduard v. Saxe-Coburg and Gotha welcomed the British ambassador Neville Henderson , in the middle the chairman of the German-English society Eugen Lehnkering

The main activity of the Ribbentrop Office was to establish personal relationships with officials from other countries, to spread positive opinions about the “Third Reich” and to counter “enemy propaganda”.

The Front Fighter Unit organized events and visiting programs for World War II participants from England, France and Germany, including a large veterans' meeting in Verdun in the summer of 1936 . In this context, and against the background of the Saar referendum, Abetz tried to establish contact with the leaders of the French front-line combatants, including Jean Goy , Robert Monnier , Henri Pichot and Georges Scapini , who also visited Hitler personally and were convinced of his alleged desire for peace. The aim of this so-called "front line diplomacy" was to put the French government under pressure through the moral authority of the veterans. Similarly, the agency also tried to establish links with British veterans' associations and to cultivate relationships with sympathizers such as Lord Lothian and Lord Mount Temple , the chairman of the Anglo-German Fellowship .

Intergovernmental associations, which the Ribbentrop Agency founded and financed, including a German-English , a German-French, a German-Dutch and a German-Polish society , played a further important role . The goal was the infiltration and cultural infiltration of the respective partner country while at the same time providing political independence from the outside. Cultural programs, the maintenance of magazines such as the Franco-German monthly , joint working meetings, contacts with representatives of the press and embassy staff, and the establishment of confidential contacts were intended to arouse sympathy for Nazi Germany.

Further tactics consisted in passing specially prepared statistics and material on the German economy and society to the foreign press via detours, and in the launching of targeted indiscretions in order to relieve foreign countries of the "peace will" of the Reich government in times of crisis, such as the introduction of general conscription in 1935 convince.

From mid-1935, Ribbentrop also headed the colonial policy of the “Third Reich”. In Great Britain he and his colleagues tried to influence the mood of British politicians and the press on the question of the return of the German colonies.

Hitler served the Ribbentrop office as a staff for his "dynamic foreign policy". He could be sure that his instructions would be implemented unbureaucratically and unconditionally. In this sense, Ribbentrop worked as “Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary on a Special Mission” in bringing about the German-British Naval Agreement of 1935. Ribbentrop also pursued a different foreign policy for the Far East with his office than the Foreign Office, for example, and ran the anti-Comintern pact project with Japan .

Competition for office

In the network of institutions, the Ribbentrop Office competed in the field of foreign policy not only with the Foreign Office, but also with other institutions of the party and the state. These included the 1933 built by Alfred Rosenberg guided Foreign Affairs Bureau of the NSDAP (APA), the NSDAP / AO by Ernst Wilhelm Bohle and the Reich Propaganda Ministry . Ribbentrop prevailed against all competitors and in February 1938 took over the office of Reich Foreign Minister. This also meant that his department lost its importance. Overall, almost a third of the Ribbentrop staff followed to the Foreign Office. Of the 28 officers from the agency who moved to the Foreign Office, 20 belonged to the SS. Other employees such as Abetz or Stahmer took on important ambassadorial posts. Hewel became the liaison man for Hitler, Likus the liaison man for the SS and SD . Martin Luther took over the new “Germany Department”.

However, the office continued to exist, although Ribbentrop was hardly interested in the remaining employees. She carried out foreign policy tasks that were not necessarily part of the Federal Foreign Office's core tasks, such as looking after foreign correspondents in Germany and selecting press officers for the German embassies . Personal relationships abroad were also maintained.

In the historiographical assessment, Hans-Adolf Jacobsen in particular emphasized that the Ribbentrop office was an expression of the lack of a system of foreign policy and the chaos of offices in the Nazi state. At the same time, however, it was primarily through this that Hitler's foreign policy decision-making power and competence was founded.

literature

  • Hans-Adolf Jacobsen : National Socialist Foreign Policy, 1933–1938. Metzner, Frankfurt a. M. 1969, DNB 457084979
  • Peter Longerich : Propagandists at War. The press department of the Foreign Office under Ribbentrop. R. Oldenbourg, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-486-54111-0 .
  • Roland Ray: Approaching France in the Service of Hitler? Otto Abetz and the German policy on France 1930–1942. R. Oldenbourg, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-486-56495-1 .
  • Rainer F Schmidt: The foreign policy of the Third Reich 1933-1939. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-608-94047-2 .
  • GT Waddington: 'An idyllic and unruffled atmosphere of complete Anglo-German misunderstanding'. Aspects of the Operations of the Ribbentrop Service in Great Britain, 1934–1938. In: History. 82 (1997), ISSN  0018-2648 , pp. 44-72.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Jacobsen: National Socialist Foreign Policy. P. 264.
  2. ↑ According to Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, the number of 300 employees, which is often quoted in the literature, is far too high. Jacobsen, Foreign Policy , p. 265.
  3. ↑ See Ray: Approach. P. 124f.
  4. ↑ Ray: Approach. P. 124.
  5. ↑ Ray: Approach. Pp. 127-150, cit. P. 136.
  6. ^ Schmidt: foreign policy. P. 69 f.
  7. ^ Jacobsen, Foreign Policy , p. 296f.
  8. ↑ Hans-Adolf Jacobsen: From the strategy of violence to the policy of securing peace. Contributions to German history in the 20th century. Droste, Düsseldorf 1977, ISBN 3-7700-0453-1 , p. 108. Almost word for word Schmidt: Foreign Policy. P. 69.
  9. ↑ Bernd Martin, Susanne Kuss: German-Chinese Relations, 1928–1937. "Same" partners under "unequal" conditions. A collection of sources. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-05-002985-4 , pp. 429-431.
  10. ^ Longerich: Propagandisten. P. 29; Schmidt: Foreign policy. P. 231.
  11. ^ Jacobsen, foreign policy , pp. 284–286.
  12. ^ Longerich: Propagandisten. P. 29f.
  13. ^ Marie-Luise Recker: The foreign policy of the Third Reich. Oldenbourg, Munich 1990, p. 64.

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 48.5 ″  N , 13 ° 22 ′ 57.9 ″  E