Elmar Lipping

Elmar Lipping (* February 22 ^jul. / 7. March  1906 ^greg. In Riga , † 5. January 1994 in New York City ) was an Estonian exile politicians.

Life

Elmar Lipping was born in the Livonian capital Riga, the son of an officer in the tsarist army . The father died in 1914 on the front lines of the First World War . After his death, the mother and the family moved to the grandfather's farm in what is now southern Estonia.

Lipping attended school in Valgjärve to then to the secondary school of the city of Otepää to change, which he completed 1,923th From 1923 to 1926 he studied at the teachers' college in Tartu ( Tartu Õpetajate seminar ). For a short time he worked as a school teacher.

Lipping then decided to pursue a military career in the armed forces of the young Estonian state. In 1928 he graduated from military school. He rose to the rank of officer. He also studied at the University of Tartu .

During the National Socialist occupation of Estonia, he fought on the German side against the Soviet Union . He rose in the 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (Estonian No. 1) in the rank of Waffen-Hauptsturmführer to battalion commander . Lipping was awarded the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd class.

In the final phase of World War II , Lipping near Preisdorf in the Opole district was seriously wounded. He experienced the end of the war in West Germany. Through Estonian and German friends, Lipping initially found a job in the US military .

Lipping eventually emigrated to the United States . He was employed in New York for the Estonian-speaking exile organization Eesti Vabaduse Hääl (EVH) (“Voice of Estonian Freedom”), which later became part of the Voice of Estonian Freedom .

Lipping was Foreign Minister of the Estonian government in exile from June 3, 1982 to June 20, 1990 .

Private life

Elmar Lipping married Elvia Kestenbeck (1922–2009) in Võru in 1941 . The couple had two sons. The older son Imre was later employed in the US State Department.

literature

• Article Elmar Lipping . In: Jaak Kukk (ed.): Fraternitas Tartuensis MCMXXIX – MCMXCII . Toronto 1992 (Estonian).