Elgar von Randow

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Elgar von Randow

Elgar von Randow (born February 14, 1904 in Spandau , † February 3, 1977 in Hamburg ) was a German diplomat and author of lyric poems.

Life

Elgar von Randow was the eldest son of Alfred von Randow and Ada, née Freiin von Dalwig . He spent his youth in Berlin and Neu-Galow , the estate of his grandfather Elgar von Dalwigk . In Berlin he attended the Askanische Gymnasium and then in Schwedt an der Oder the Hohenzollern Gymnasium. After graduating from high school in 1921, he studied law in Marburg an der Lahn , Freiburg im Breisgau and Greifswald . After the legal traineeship in 1925, he joined the Foreign Office on July 19, 1926 . On June 10, 1925, he joined the NSDAP ; membership ended on January 31, 1926 and was renewed on November 1, 1935.

In 1930 he was transferred to the German legation in Beijing as an attaché . This was the beginning of a lifelong diplomatic career in Asia, which was only to be interrupted by short periods of service in Germany and the end of World War II. On September 15, 1933, he was transferred to the Consulate General in Shanghai , where he was first Vice Consul and later Consul . Two months after the start of the Second World War, he was recalled to Berlin and from November 29, 1939 to March 11, 1941, he was the second liaison officer of the AA at the Air Force Command Staff in Bornstedt near Potsdam . For his work there he received the War Merit Cross 2nd Class with Swords. Afterwards he was appointed to a newly created embassy office in Shanghai for propaganda work as a delegation counselor, 2nd class. The departure took place on April 22, 1941, two months before the German attack on the Soviet Union , with the Trans-Siberian Railway via Vladivostok . After the reorganization of the German foreign authorities in the spring of 1942, Randow became deputy head of department and political advisor in Shanghai. He held this position until the end of the European war.

Elgar vR (Federal Cross of Merit) .jpg

post war period

On October 18, 1945, the Germans in Shanghai were interned by the Chinese authorities of Chiang Kai-shek in the Kiangwan camp near Shanghai. On April 16, 1946, Randow and 26 other Germans were handed over to the American army authorities in Shanghai, which they called before a military commission convened by the commanding general of the Nanjing headquarters in the so-called “Ehrhardt Trial” , including the illegal continuation of “military activities against the USA and their allies ”after the German surrender. The written indictment came on August 1, 1946, and the trial lasted for Randow and five other defendants until November 13, 1946. Then, before the defense gave its opinion, the court declared that the evidence presented was insufficient, the indictment that ambassador Ernst Woermann and the embassy staff had carried out the Ehrhardt Group's agent activities and found them “not guilty”. Lothar Eisträger, on the other hand, was sentenced to life imprisonment and twenty other agents were sentenced to long prison terms. Despite his acquittal, Randow spent the time up to his repatriation in the prison in Shanghai, and even after his return to Germany he had to remain  in the Dachau internment camp until July 21, 1947 - as a suspected war criminal - and was then released without any conditions Ambassador Woermann was sentenced to five years imprisonment in the Wilhelmstrasse trial . There is no evidence of his denazification .

Then he went to Solingen , where he worked as a commercial clerk in the cutlery company of his father-in-law, Friedrich Herder Abr. Sohn GmbH (trademark Pik As ), worked until he was reassigned to the German Foreign Service after the re-establishment of a German Foreign Service and was transferred to the German Embassy in the Indonesian capital Jakarta in 1953 , when he was appointed Legation Councilor, 1st Class . In November 1957 he went to the Burmese capital, Rangoon , as an envoy .

In 1961 he was called back to Bonn and there headed the Central Exchange Office for cultural exchange with the Soviet Union . In September 1964 he became Consul General in Calcutta , India , his last post. In November 1968 he was awarded the Great Federal Cross of Merit , and in February 1969 he was retired. After that he was a member of the executive board of the German Society for East Asian Studies in Hamburg until 1975 .

Four marriages

Elgar von Randow was married four times and had five sons, two from the first marriage, two from the second and one from the third.

  • 1927–1935 Erika Stolte (born February 5, 1904, † December 20, 1986)
  • 1935–1945 Ilse Henneberg (born June 12, 1901, † October 18, 1998).
  • 1945–1957 Alexandra Bick (born January 26, 1916, † October 14, 2007), the secretary of the later famous journalist Klaus Mehnert
  • 1957–1976 Franziska Angeli (born December 9, 1920, † September 9, 1976)

Works

Elgar von Randow wrote poetry throughout his life, but most of them remained unpublished. In Shanghai three small volumes of poetry were published by a German publisher:

  • Clouds and crystals . Max Nössler & Co., Shanghai (China) 1943.
  • Gods and people . Max Nössler & Co., Shanghai (China) 1943.
  • Light and shadow . Max Nössler & Co., Shanghai (China) 1944.

literature

  • Olof v. Randow: The Randows. A family story . Degener, Neustadt / Aisch 2001, ISBN 3-7686-5182-7 , ( German family archive 135/136).
  • 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 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ TRIAL OF LOTHAR EISENTRAGER AND OTHERS BEFORE A UNITED STATES MILITARY COMMISSION, ~ SHANGHAI, CHINA 3rd OCTOBER, 1946-14TH JANUARY, 1947 (PDF; 9.0 MB)
  2. ↑ Herrmann AL Degener, Walter Habel (ed.): Randow von, Elgar. In: Who is who ?. Volume 19, 1976, p. 763.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Randow, Elgar von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat and writer of lyric poems
DATE OF BIRTH February 14, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Spandau
DATE OF DEATH 3rd February 1977
Place of death Hamburg