Eduard Waetjen

Eduard Waetjen , also Eduard Wätjen or Eddie Waetjen (born August 19, 1907 in Bremen , † May 28, 1994 in Ascona ) was a German lawyer and employee of the Abwehr ( Canaris ). He was a resistance fighter against National Socialism and a member of the Kreisau Circle .

biography

Waetjen was the son of an American mother. He studied law and obtained a doctorate in law. jur. He had good contacts with the Reich German Foreign Ministry and had extensive international contacts.

During the Second World War he worked for Hans Bernd Gisevius in the Foreign / Defense Office ( intelligence service ) in the Wehrmacht High Command under Admiral Wilhelm Canaris , particularly in Turkey and Switzerland . From February 15, 1945, he represented the German Consulate General in Switzerland as economic advisor and had official contacts with the Western allies beforehand .

Waetjen was a friend of Helmuth James Graf von Moltke and Adam von Trott zu Solz and belonged to the Kreisau district. He warned the German industrialist Eduard Schulte , who was involved in the production of the V2 , of an attack by the Gestapo and on December 2, 1943 helped him to flee to Switzerland, who wanted to make the systematic killing of people in the labor camps known internationally.

During the Second World War , Waetjen , like Hans Bernd Gisevius, Georg Alexander Hansen and Gero von Gävernitz, had contacts with Allen Dulles , the OSS representative operating from Switzerland . As early as January 1944, Waetjen and Gisevius informed the OSS about the plans of the German resistance.

Although the Gestapo had known about his contacts with the Kreisau District at least since 1943, he was "disregarded by Himmler's agents due to a strange coincidence".

Waetjen was a participant in the 15th Bergedorf Round Table Development Aid - Means of Rise or Fall of the Körber Foundation in 1964 in Hamburg-Bergedorf.

He lived in Ascona , Switzerland.

Web links

• References
• Klemens von Klemperer: The "connection to the big world". The external relations of the German resistance 1938–1945. (pdf; 90 kB)
• The OSS and Project SAFEHAVEN.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Christof Mauch : Shadow war against Hitler. The Third Reich in the sights of the American secret services 1941–1945. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-421-05196-8 , p. 164.