Eberhard von Thadden
Eberhard Hans Arnold von Thadden (born November 17, 1909 in Berlin-Charlottenburg ; † November 11, 1964 in Ratingen ) was a German lawyer, head of division in the "Inland II" group and Jewish advisor in the Foreign Office under Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop .
Life
The son of the captain and later Supreme Arnold von Thadden and his wife Margaret, born Epenstein, 1928 acquired the Abitur at the grammar school in Weimar and then completed a business apprenticeship at a Hamburg export firm before it at the Universities of Hamburg and Freiburg / Breisgau studied law. Was Thadden finally in 1933 at the University of Göttingen to Dr. jur. PhD with the dissertation supervised by Herbert Kraus The reserved area of activity of the states (domaine réservé): An international law study , which appeared in 1934. In addition to his legal preparatory service, von Thadden studied at the Berlin School of Politics with Johann von Leers and Albrecht Haushofer . He came to the Ribbentrop office through Haushofer in 1936 . After his legal assessor examination, he was hired as an attaché in the Foreign Office on November 1, 1937 and initially employed in the "Eastern European Department of the Political Department". In February 1940 he was appointed Secretary of the Legation . He then worked in the human resources department. In December 1941 he was appointed Legation Councilor .
Political activity and membership in Nazi organizations
In his youth, Thadden was involved with the Bismarck Youth and from 1927 with the DNVP . Von Thadden was with a resolution of 27 April 1933, the membership number 3184501 shortly before the temporary hiring freeze from 1 May 1933 member of the NSDAP become. At the same time he became a member of the SA . In September 1936 he was accepted into the SS (membership number 276.846), where he was promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer on January 30, 1945 .
Second World War
During the Second World War , Thadden was used as a Wehrmacht soldier on the Eastern Front from February 1942 , where he achieved the rank of NCO. In April 1942 he was injured in the war and was awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd class. After his recovery he was released from the Wehrmacht and returned to the service of the Foreign Office.
From the end of 1942 Thadden was deployed in Greece. There he was assigned to Hermann Neubacher , the special commissioner for economic issues in Southeast Europe , in order to support him in the reorganization of the Greek economy, which was closely linked to its “exploitation and expropriation for the purpose of the German war economy”. Although he was aware of anti-Jewish measures, at that time he was not yet the Foreign Office's Jewish advisor in order to organize them.
Jew officer in the Foreign Office
From the beginning of April 1943, Thadden worked under his direct superior Horst Wagner , von Ribbentrop's liaison and Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler , as Wagner's deputy and head of department in the “Inland II” group, which, according to the Foreign Office's business distribution plan, was responsible for “carrying out Jewish measures” was. His complete area of responsibility included the "connection to the Reichsführer SS, especially Pers. Staff, to the SS main office (General SS and matters of the Waffen-SS), Jewish questions, Freemasons, expatriation, general offices and personal details of Group Inl. II, special orders ”.
As "Judenreferent" Ribbentrops, von Thadden participated in the deportation of the Jews. He was trained by his predecessor as "Judenreferent", Franz Rademacher , who was deposed in this position as a close assistant to Undersecretary Martin Luther after his fall, but was available for some time to answer questions from Thaddens before his final transfer to the Navy. On May 15, 1943, von Thadden noted on the notification of an adjutant to Rademacher that Gauleiter Wilhelm Kube had “shown the Italians a gas chamber”, “in which the Jews were supposed to be killed. The [Italian] fascists are said to have been deeply shaken. Mr. Rademacher found out about this incident through ..., Adjutant of Reichsleiter Rosenberg ... ".
When the Swiss envoy Peter Anton Feldscher asked the Foreign Office on May 12, 1943, on behalf of the British government, whether there was a willingness to allow 5,000 Jewish children from the German territory to travel to Palestine , Eberhard von Thadden worked out one for the Inland II department Horst Wagner commissioned and supported as well as the propagandistic rejection of this rescue attempt, known in official jargon as Feldscher-Aktion , as well as approved by various department heads of the AA , which led to the rescue of the children being thwarted.
On December 22, 1943, Thadden found out during the tussle for the 600 Jews of Saloniki with Spanish citizenship that every Jew was an enemy of Germany. Since free emigration from Saloniki was out of the question, an agreement was reached with Spain on the transfer to a very favored residential camp in Germany, the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp . Only 365 Jews saw their Spanish homeland again after the end of the war.
His responsibility for deportations is also evident from a letter to Adolf Eichmann dated April 24, 1944: “The plan is to begin transporting 3,000 Jews a day, mainly from the Carpathian region , on May 15 [...] Auschwitz is planned as the place of reception . "After a visit to Eichmann in Budapest, he wrote in a report from May 25, 1944:" Around 200,000 more [Jews] are concentrated and waiting to be transported. "
Thadden gave a lecture at the conference “Anti-Jewish Foreign Action” organized by his superior, Horst Wagner, of Jewish officers and “Aryanization advisors” from 12 German embassies in Europe at the beginning of April 1944 in Krummhübel about “the Jewish political situation in Europe and the status of anti-Jewish executive measures ”. He outlined the “status of anti-Jewish measures in all European countries” and encouraged diplomats to actively encourage understanding for these measures at their places of work. After a first visit to the Theresienstadt ghetto together with representatives of the party chancellery and the Red Cross on June 28, 1943, during which the overcrowding of the ghetto had become negative, von Thadden accompanied the IRK representative, the Swiss, on June 23, 1944 Maurice Rossel , the Danes Frants Hvass and Eigil Juel Henningsen and the German Red Cross representative Freiherr von Heydekampf in a group of high-ranking SS leaders during a visit to the Theresienstadt ghetto. In order to reduce the overcrowding of the ghetto this time [...] thousands were deported to the death camps "and an almost perfect illusion was shown to the visitors, so that the Danes had nothing negative in their contacts with their compatriots except" understandable psychological pressure “Noticed. Von Thadden was guided through the Theresienstadt ghetto for the last time on April 6, 1945 with a commission. The functionaries of the IRK Otto Lehner (delegate of the IRK in Berlin) and Paul Dunant (delegate of the IRK for Theresienstadt) were welcomed by von Luckwald (envoy from the Foreign Office in Prague), von Thadden, Buchmüller (Swiss diplomat) and the SS leader Weinmann and Eichmann accompanied. Hans Günther led the commission through the camp as the camp commandant Karl Rahm was absent due to illness. During this visit, too, the IRK representatives were deceived about the real conditions in the ghetto, as the camp had previously been beautified and cultural events were held for prisoners during the visit. Weinmann cited falsified deportation figures, and Lehner's final report, written shortly afterwards, shows that the deception had had an effect, as it had before. The background to this visit by representatives of the IRK in Ghetto Theresienstadt during the final phase of the Second World War was the secret negotiations between Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler and representatives of Sweden and the IRK.
post war period
Thadden went to Halle / Saale , where his wife and their child lived. From there the family moved to Cologne-Sülz in September 1945 , where Thadden was arrested by British military police due to his membership in the SS. He was then arrested in the Recklinghausen internment camp and in the spring of 1946 transferred to the Nuremberg cell prison, where he was questioned several times during the Nuremberg trials. In connection with the Nuremberg Trial , Thadden was asked about the “Anti-Jewish Foreign Action” (AAA), which was also called “Information Center XIV”. He said that the AAA, with its own staff and those assigned by other agencies, had combined anti-Jewish propaganda in the Foreign Office and coordinated it with other offices. This often led to a battle for competencies with other departments. Therefore, the AAA was able to “do nothing at all” in the long term. Originally, von Thadden was to be charged in the Wilhelmstrasse trial . When the list of accused was expanded to include members of other agencies based on Wilhelmstrasse, Thadden's name was deleted. Thadden was released from Allied internment in 1949. In December 1950 he was indicted before the Nuremberg jury court, but withdrew. He was then picked up again, and in June 1952, the Cologne public prosecutor's office again initiated an investigation against him. Thadden was released from prosecution in 1956 for lack of evidence.
Against Eberhard von Thadden, as Wagner's deputy and Jewish advisor at the Foreign Office, proceedings were pending again at the Essen Regional Court - similar to his superior - for aiding and abetting the murder of Jews, which was discontinued after Thadden's accidental death. Due to an Israeli request for legal assistance in connection with the Eichmann trial , Thadden testified in Düsseldorf on May 7, 1961. At that time Thadden lived with his family as a wealthy businessman in Büderich , u. a. he was a member of the management board of Gollnow-Werke AG in Düsseldorf .
On November 8, 1964, Thadden near Düsseldorf came off the lane with his car due to excessive speed on a wet road and raced into oncoming traffic, where he collided head-on with an oncoming vehicle. The two occupants of the other car died instantly. Thadden was taken to a hospital in Ratingen with very serious injuries, where he died on November 11, 1964 as a result of the traffic accident.
literature
- Eckart Conze , Norbert Frei , Peter Hayes , Moshe Zimmermann : The Office and the Past . German diplomats in the Third Reich and in the Federal Republic. Karl Blessing Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-89667-430-2 .
- Hans-Jürgen Döscher : The Foreign Office in the Third Reich. Diplomacy in the shadow of the final solution. Berlin 1987, pp. 262-305, especially pp. 276 ff. And p. 305.
- Sebastian Weitkamp: Brown diplomats. Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden as functionaries of the “Final Solution”. Dietz, Bonn 2008, ISBN 3-8012-4178-5 .
- Sebastian Weitkamp: The visit of the Judenreferenten. The tour of the Bergen-Belsen camp by the German diplomat Eberhard von Thadden in July 1943. In: Hilfe oder Handel? Rescue efforts for victims of Nazi persecution. Edited by Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial (= Contributions to the History of National Socialist Persecution in Northern Germany, Vol. 10). Edition Temmen, Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-86108-874-5 , pp. 50-67 ( abstract ).
swell
- Examinations of Eberhard von Thadden 1947. In: Archive of the Institute for Contemporary History , Munich, signature ZS-0359 1 ( ifz-muenchen.de [PDF; 17.3 MB]; protocols of Thadden's interrogations in the context of the Nuremberg trials).
Web links
- Literature by and about Eberhard von Thadden in the catalog of the German National Library
- Thadden, Eberhard von. In: Theresienstadt Lexicon.
Individual evidence
- ^ Bernward Dörner : The Germans and the Holocaust. What nobody wanted to know, but everyone could know. Propylaea, Berlin 2007, ISBN 3-549-07315-1 , p. 632.
- ↑ Sebastian Weitkamp: Brown diplomats. Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden as functionaries of the “Final Solution”. Bonn 2008, p. 53.
- ^ Reviews from the archive for social history online: Sebastian Weitkamp: Brown diplomats. Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden as functionaries of the “Final Solution”.
- ↑ a b c cf. Ernst Klee : Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 620.
- ^ Sebastian Weitkamp: The visit of the Judenreferenten. The tour of the Bergen-Belsen camp by the German diplomat Eberhard von Thadden in July 1943. In: Hilfe oder Handel? Rescue efforts for victims of Nazi persecution. Bremen 2007, p. 53.
- ↑ Sebastian Weitkamp: Brown diplomats. Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden as functionaries of the “Final Solution”. Bonn 2008, p. 96 f.
- ↑ Sebastian Weitkamp: Brown diplomats. Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden as functionaries of the “Final Solution”. Bonn 2008, p. 97.
- ↑ Magnus Brechtken : Madagascar for the Jews: Anti-Semitic Idea and Political Practice 1885–1945. Studies in contemporary history. 2nd Edition. Oldenbourg, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-486-56384-X , p. 252.
- ↑ Sebastian Weitkamp: Brown diplomats. Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden as functionaries of the “Final Solution”. Bonn 2008, p. 134.
- ↑ Reinhard Bollmus: The office of Rosenberg and its opponents. Munich 1970, p. 292. (Cited source: Eichmann-Prozess , Dokument 203, Ph. Im IfZ ; broadcast Das unheilvolle Staatsgeheimnis , Südd. Rundfunk, 2nd program, November 11, 1968.)
- ↑ Sebastian Weitkamp: Brown diplomats. Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden as functionaries of the “Final Solution”. Bonn 2008, pp. 209-230.
- ^ Raul Hilberg: The Destruction of European Jews , Volume 21, Fischer Verlag 1982, ISBN 3-596-24417-X , pp. 747ff
- ↑ a b Quotation from Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 620.
- ↑ Manfred Steinkühler: "Anti-Jewish foreign action". The conference of the Jewish consultants April 1944. In: Karsten Linne, Thomas Wohlleben (ed.): Patient history. For Karl Heinz Roth . 2001-Verlag, Frankfurt 1993, ISBN 3-86150-015-9 , pp. 256–279, here p. 269. - The minutes are also available online: Conference of the “Judenreferenten” in Krummhübel, 3./4. April 1944. In: NS archive. Documents on National Socialism.
- ↑ Sebastian Weitkamp: Brown diplomats. Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden as functionaries of the “Final Solution”. Bonn 2008, p. 188 f.
- ^ Wolfgang Benz : Theresienstadt. A story of deception and annihilation. CH Beck, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-64549-5 , p. 188; Sebastian Weitkamp: Brown diplomats. Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden as functionaries of the “Final Solution”. Bonn 2008, p. 193 f.
- ↑ Sebastian Weitkamp: Brown diplomats. Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden as functionaries of the “Final Solution”. Bonn 2008, p. 194 f.
- ^ Hans G. Adler : Theresienstadt. The face of a coercive community 1941–1945. Afterword Jeremy Adler . Wallstein, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89244-694-6 (reprint of the 2nd, combined edition Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 1960. 1st edition, ibid. 1955), pp. 203 f.
- ↑ Sebastian Weitkamp: Brown diplomats. Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden as functionaries of the “Final Solution”. Bonn 2008, p. 371.
- ↑ Affidavit by Thaddens of June 21, 1946. Quoted from: Peter Longerich : Propagandisten im Krieg. The press department of the Foreign Office under Ribbentrop. P. 68. Longerich draws attention to the fact that von Thadden may have colored the statement in order to exonerate himself.
- ↑ Dirk Pöppmann: Robert Kempner and Ernst von Weizsäcker in the Wilhelmstrasse trial . For the discussion about the participation of the German functional elite in the Nazi crimes. S. 173. In: Irmtrud Wojak, Susanne Meinl: In the labyrinth of guilt. Frankfurt 2003, ISBN 3-593-37373-4 .
- ↑ Randolph L. Braham : The politics of genocide. The Holocaust in Hungary. Columbia University Press, New York 1981, ISBN 0-231-05208-1 , p. 398.
- ^ Kerstin Freudiger: The legal processing of Nazi crimes. Tübingen 2002, ISBN 3-16-147687-5 , p. 93.
- ^ Eichmann trial: The Testimony of Eberhard von Thadden. 1st part , 2nd part . In: The Nizkor Project .
- ↑ Sebastian Weitkamp: Brown diplomats. Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden as functionaries of the “Final Solution”. Bonn 2008, p. 406.
- ↑ Sebastian Weitkamp: Brown diplomats. Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden as functionaries of the “Final Solution”. Bonn 2008, p. 431.
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Thadden, Eberhard von |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Thadden, Eberhard Hans Arnold von (full name) |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German lawyer and diplomat and organizer of deportations of Jews |
DATE OF BIRTH | 17th November 1909 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin-Charlottenburg |
DATE OF DEATH | November 11, 1964 |
Place of death | Ratingen |