citissime at night
citissime at night is a telegraph sign that is used in the wire reports of the Foreign Office . citissime (Latin: "in a hurry", "in a hurry") as a term comes from the time of Prussian telegraphy , with which preferred messages were identified.
A message that is sent to the Foreign Office in Berlin or from it to a German mission abroad ( embassy or consulate ) and is marked with citissime at night due to its urgency , causes the relevant department head of the office, ambassador, consul or foreign minister to be is awakened and informed about the relevant situation.
An example of a message labeled “citissime at night” was the report by the German embassy in Jakarta in June 1979 about the German ship Rembertitum , which rescued 412 refugees from Indochina from a sinking ship, but was refused entry by the Indonesian government. The ambassador asked for instructions as to whether the refugees could be guaranteed admission to Germany.
The wire report no. 1467 sent by the German embassy in Washington to the Berlin Foreign Office on September 11, 2001 on the occasion of the terrorist attacks in the USA was given the urgency level “citissime at night”.
In August 2005, the overthrow of the Prime Minister in Mauritania fell under the urgency level “citissime at night”.
The Foreign Office employee Christian Buck describes the background and procedure for "citissime at night" as follows:
“A devastating seaquake in Indonesia, the release of German hostages in the Philippines or a bomb attack on the international airport in Colombo are so important at 3:30 in the morning that at least the responsible department head and the press officer should be awakened. Often enough, the situation center also has to ring state secretaries or the minister out of bed [...] "
Web links
- Emanuel Eckardt: Leiser Blues in the AA, Unit 210. In: Die Zeit , 51/2003
Individual evidence
- ↑ duden.de
- ↑ Citissime . In: Brockhaus Kleines Konversationslexikon 1911 on zeno.org
- ↑ Back ashamed . In: Der Spiegel . No. 27 , 1979 ( online ).
- ↑ cf. Facsimile of the telegram in the article A German War . In: Der Spiegel , No. 36/2011.
- ↑ Bernhard Borgeest: United embassy, Bush embassy . In: Focus , No. 9/2007.
- ↑ Christian Buck: A Day in the Foreign Office - From the morning press to night duty. In: Enrico Brandt, Christian Buck (ed.): Foreign Office. Diplomacy as a profession. 4th edition. VS - Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-531-14723-4 , p. 11ff.