Dietrich Niebuhr

Dietrich Niebuhr (born October 21, 1888 in Hirschberg ; † October 24, 1963 ) was a German naval officer , naval attaché and translator .

Life

Niebuhr joined the Imperial Navy in April 1907 and was promoted to lieutenant at sea by the end of September 1910 . In the coming years, its use was made of various board positions in the field and commands, so in 1913 as a deck officer on the submarine U 21 . During the First World War he was in command of UB 43 from April to August 1916 . After his promotion to lieutenant captain at the end of March 1917 , he came to the submarine commander in August 1918 as an admiralty staff officer . After the end of the war and the collapse of the German Empire, Niebuhr remained in the naval service. In November 1919 he was officially accepted into the Reichsmarine .

Without an order from industry associations, Dietrich Niebuhr was sent to Argentina by the naval office in the Reichswehr Ministry in Berlin in 1929 in order to work in Buenos Aires, after approval by the Argentine naval office, in an advisory role for the naval industry in order to achieve favorable conditions for both countries for the implementation of orders Realizing naval armament. The Reichswehr Minister Wilhelm Groener (1867–1939) had approved this step , and an information letter from the Naval Office to the Foreign Office was sent on January 12, 1929. In order to allow a certain camouflage of the actual activities on site from the beginning, he was not introduced as an officer, but as a merchant in the German embassy in Buenos Aires. Niebuhr worked in this area of ​​responsibility as a shop steward for the German and Argentine armaments industry until 1936. On April 1, 1936 he was promoted to frigate captain ( E-officer ).

From November 1936 Niebuhr was notified as a naval attaché at the German embassy in Argentina in Buenos Aires . In addition to Argentina, Niebuhr's administrative area, which also served as an air force attaché, also included Brazil , Uruguay , Paraguay and, from the end of 1937, Chile . In this capacity he was officially responsible for maintaining the marine political relations of these countries. At the same time, as a member of the Abwehr, Niebuhr was responsible for the German secret service activities in Argentina, to the center of which he expanded Buenos Aires. Covering his status as an attaché, Niebuhr was responsible for the so-called “ stage service ” that was newly formed at the Office / Defense in Berlin since 1938 . This was an organization that had been set up by the head of the Abwehr Wilhelm Canaris (1875-1945) for the "ship supply" of the German Navy in important foreign ports. It was a camouflage designation. Werner Könnecke was the head of the stage service, code name “Bolivar”, as the branch office for Argentina was called.

In 1941 Niebuhr was expelled from the Argentine government because of his secret service activities. In January 1943 he returned to Germany as a sea ​​captain and from March 1943 to May 1944 took over as chief of Group IV ( special marine service ) of the foreign department in the defense of the Wehrmacht High Command . Then he was head of the U-Liaison Staff Croatia and at the same time naval attaché in Agram until the end of the war . At the end of the Second World War, Niebuhr became a prisoner of war in the United States .

From 1954 Niebuhr worked as a translator and partly as a co-editor of books, novels, war literature from English and Spanish. Among them were the memoirs of British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery published in 1958 . During this time he mainly worked with List Verlag Munich, Schlichtenmayer Verlag Tübingen and Stalling Verlag Oldenburg.

Dietrich Niebuhr died on October 24, 1963.

Working as a translator

• Simons Fitz: The tobacco king. German book club, Berlin 1954.
• Russel Grenfeldt: The end of an era. Schlichtenmeyer Verlag, Tübingen 1955.
• Jose Maria Gironella: The cypresses believe in God. List Verlag, Munich 1957.
• John B. Glubb Pasha: Beyond the Jordan. Soldier with the Arabs. List Verlag, Munich 1958.
• Bernard Montgomery: Memoirs. List Verlag, Munich 1958. (Original: The Memoirs of Field-Marshal the Viscount Montgomery. )
• David Armine Howarth: You drove the Shetland bus. Schlichtenmeyer Verlag, Tübingen 1959. (Original: The Shetland Bus. )
• Tadashi Nakajima / Rikihei Inoguchi: The divine wind. Stalling Verlag, Oldenburg / Hamburg 1959.
• Stephen Wentworth Roskill: The secret to U 110.Bernhard & Graefe Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1959. (Original: The Secret Capture. )
• George N. Crocker: Pacemaker of the Soviets. The fate of the world was in Roosevelt's hands. Schlichtenmeyer Verlag, Tübingen 1960. (Original: Roosevelt's Road to Russia. )
• Pierre Barton: Adventure Alaska. The great hunt for gold and luck. List Verlag, Munich 1960.
• Randolph Churchill : Sir Anthony Eden. Rise and fall. Bern 1960. (Original: The Rise and Fall of Anthony Eden. )
• Geoffrey Bailey: conspirators around Russia. List Verlag, Munich 1961. ( The Conspirators. )
• Montgomery of Alamein: Leadership. List Verlag, Munich 1961.
• Michael Caryer: El Alamein. The turning point of World War II. 1963.
• Jeso Maria Gironella: Ripe on olive blossoms . List Verlag, Munich 1963.
• Stephen Wentworth Roskill: Naval Warfare through the Ages: From Henry VIII to Modern Times. Fritz Schlichtenmayer Publishing House, Tübingen 1965.

literature

• Ludwig Dinklage: The German merchant fleet 1939-1945. 1971.
• Arnold Ebel: The Third Reich and Argentina. Diplomatic relations taking into account trade policy 1933–1939. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 1970.
• Marine attaché. Books LLC, Wiki Series, Memphis USA, 2011, p. 6.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Marine attaché. Books LLC, Wiki Series, Memphis USA, 2011, p. 6.
2. ^ Arnold Ebel: The Third Reich and Argentina. Diplomatic relations taking into account trade policy 1933–1939. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 1970.
3. ↑ Marine attaché. Books LLC, Wiki Series, Memphis USA, 2011, p. 6.
4. ^ Finding aids and registry of the German State Library Prussian Cultural Heritage Berlin