Andor Hencke

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Andor Hencke (born July 14, 1895 in Berlin ; † January 31, 1984 in Tegernsee ) was a German diplomat in the Weimar Republic and during the National Socialist era and a member of the NSDAP . After the Second World War he was a senior official in the Federal Intelligence Service .

Life

After visiting the cadet institute in Lichterfelde , Hencke initially served as a Prussian officer and, after the end of the First World War, as an officer in the Reichswehr .

On October 17, 1922, at the instigation of Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, he was appointed to the Foreign Office , where he became the Count's personal secretary at the German embassy in Moscow from November 2, 1922 until the Count's death on September 8, 1928 .

From April 24, 1933 to November 12, 1935 Hencke was consul in Kiev and from September 26, 1936 also worked as a consul in Prague . Hencke was promoted to envoy 2nd class on November 12, 1936 and to envoy 1st class on June 16, 1937. Hencke became a member of the NSDAP in 1935, i.e. during the NSDAP's membership ban between 1933 and 1937.

After the German envoy Ernst Eisenlohr was appointed to the Foreign Office during the Sudeten crisis , Hencke took over his function as German Chargé d'Affaires on September 16, 1938, and on March 15, 1939 became the Foreign Office's representative to the Reich Protector for Bohemia and Moravia , Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath , appointed. According to his own statements, on the occasion of the break-up of Czechoslovakia , Hencke told his employees that they would "probably see the birth of a new world war ". Despite this criticism of Adolf Hitler's policy, he remained in office, after the conclusion of the German-Soviet border and friendship treaty of September 28, 1939, he became head of the delegation in the Joint Central Commission of the German Reich and the USSR for border issues in Moscow , and in June 1940, after the capitulation of France , representative of the Foreign Office at the German Armistice Commission in Wiesbaden . On August 16, 1940, Hencke was promoted to envoy and carried out special assignments in Information Center III of the Foreign Office until the end of 1942 .

On January 11, 1943, Hencke became deputy ambassador in Madrid and on March 12, 1943 he took over the function of envoy first class in the Spanish capital. However, he only held this position for a few days, because in the course of the change in the Foreign Office in March 1943, Hencke was called back to the Foreign Office to take over the management of the Political Department. His last promotion was on April 29, 1943, when he was appointed ministerial director with the title of undersecretary of state.

The Foreign Office was not only represented at the Wannsee Conference , but was subsequently also involved in the deportation of the Jews, and Hencke initialed such documents, "The Foreign Minister" demanded, and the following signed: Werner von Grundherr, Otto von Erdmannsdorff and Hencke, on September 17, 1943 from the embassy in Copenhagen "on the method of evacuation of the Jews, which in principle has been decided to make precise proposals" .

post war period

After the end of the Second World War, Hencke was interned and questioned. In 1946 , Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop , who was indicted in the Nuremberg trial of the main war criminals , asked in vain to be summoned as an exonerating witness. Hencke's predecessor as head of the “Political Department” Ernst Woermann was sentenced to five years in prison in the Wilhelmstrasse trial . Hencke was released from prison in 1947 and was initially able to return to public service as a clerk in the Reutlingen tax office . Nothing is known about its denazification . Hencke had his residence in Munich since 1951.

In the Federal Republic of Germany, Hencke headed the Eastern Department of the Federal Intelligence Service for many years, for which he was predestined as a former diplomat in the Soviet Union and a language expert; his previous membership in the NSDAP was no obstacle to this. His memoirs were published by the Ukrainian Free University in Munich .

Fonts

Hencke wrote detailed manuscripts about individual stages of his career, but only two of them were published:

  • Eyewitness to a tragedy. Diplomatic years in Prague 1936-1939 Publication of the Sudeten German Archives in Munich; 11, Munich: Fides Publishing Company 1977.
  • Memories as German Consul in Kiev in the years 1933-1936 With a preliminary remark by Georg Stadtmüller . From: Communications of the Working and Funding Association of Ukrainian Sciences eV No. 14. 1977 a. No. 15. 1978 Munich: Ukrainian Free University 1979.

literature

  • Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 2: Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: G – K. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2005, ISBN 3-506-71841-X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Place of death according to the " Reich Chancellery Files " is Kreuth .
  2. ↑ "Files of the Reich Chancellery. Weimar Republic ”online: 1935 member of the NSDAP. How Hencke managed to become a member during the lockdown remains to be determined. Members of the SS and SA were exempt from the ban.
  3. ↑ on Werner von Grundherr see entry in the Munzinger archive
  4. ↑ Léon Poliakov , Joseph Wulf : The Third Reich and its servants. Fourier, Wiesbaden 1989, ISBN 3-925037-45-4 . P. 102; see also: Rescue of the Danish Jews
  5. ^ State Department Special Interrogations at archives.gov
personal data
SURNAME Hencke, Andor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat and Undersecretary of State
DATE OF BIRTH July 14, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH January 31, 1984
Place of death Tegernsee