Cécil von Renthe-Fink (diplomat)

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Cecil von Renthe-Fink (2nd from right) with Hinrich Lohse , Thorvald Stauning and Peter Knutzen (1941)

Cécil Karl-August Timon Ernst Anton von Renthe-Fink , actually called Fink by Renthe (born January 27, 1885 in Breslau , Lower Silesia ; † August 22, 1964 in Munich ) was a German diplomat . From April 9, 1940 to November 1942 he was Reich Plenipotentiary in occupied Denmark .

Life

Renthe-Fink came from a family from Anhalt who, together with his great-grandfather, the Anhalt District President Lebrecht Renthe in Köthen , was raised to the rank of nobility in 1820 , and was the son of the royal Prussian Lieutenant General of the same name, ZD Cécil von Renthe-Fink (1845 –1909) and Agnes von Oppeln-Bronikowski (1856–1945).

At the end of his law studies in Geneva, Munich and Berlin, he wrote his dissertation as a trainee lawyer in 1907, The Transportability of Kux in Prussian Mining Law (Verlag A. Kampf, Jena 1907) at the law faculty of the University of Jena . In 1913 he joined the Foreign Service. From 1924 to 1926 he was a member of the German People's Party . Between 1924 and 1927 he was seconded to the International Elbe Commission and was then a member of the Political Department of the League of Nations Secretariat in Geneva until October 1933 .

In 1936 he was appointed German ambassador to Denmark. In 1939 he joined the NSDAP . After the " Operation Weser Exercise ", which led to the occupation of Denmark by the German Reich on April 9, 1940 , he was appointed Reich plenipotentiary. In November 1942 he was replaced by Werner Best . He was considered a hesitant diplomat and his successor should take a harder line.

In 1943 Renthe-Fink became the special diplomatic envoy to Marshal Pétain in the Vichy regime , whom he accompanied to Sigmaringen , where the Petain government fled in September 1944 after the Allied invasion of France.

Together with Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop , the creation of a European confederation was proposed, including a common German currency, a central bank in Berlin, the principle of regionalism and economic and trade agreements. Von Renthe-Fink noted on September 9, 1943:

"If we were to take up the idea of ​​a national solution based on the voluntary cooperation of independent nations, the confidence of the European peoples in our politics would certainly be strengthened and their willingness to follow our lead and create for our victory would be increased."

Nothing is known about its denazification .

Renthe-Fink married on July 17, 1919 in Oberhofen am Thunersee ( Switzerland ) Christa Countess Vitzthum von Eckstädt (born July 25, 1897 in Dresden ). The couple had three daughters and two sons, the latter killed during World War II.

See also

literature

  • Corinna Franz:  Renthe-Fink, Cécil von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , p. 438 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of the noble houses. Part B. 1941. Justus Perthes Verlag, Gotha 1941, p. 421.
  • Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 3: Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: L – R. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2008, ISBN 978-3-506-71842-6 .
  • Fritz Petrick (ed.): The occupation policy of German fascism in Denmark and Norway (1940-1945). Hüthig, Berlin et al. 1992, ISBN 3-8226-1992-2 ( Europe under the swastika 7).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Renthe-Fink, Cécil von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Renthe-Fink, Cecil Karl-August Timon Ernst Anton von; Renthe called Fink, Cecil Karl-August Timon Ernst Anton von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH January 27, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw , Lower Silesia
DATE OF DEATH 22nd August 1964
Place of death Munich