Emil Ehrich

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Emil Ehrich (born December 10, 1908 in Scheppau, Helmstedt district , † July 16, 1982 in Königslutter am Elm ) was a first- class legation councilor in the Foreign Office during the Nazi era . In the 1950s Ehrich managed a career as a senior civil servant under the Lower Saxony Prime Minister Heinrich Hellwege , which finally made him rise to the position of Ministerialrat and Head of Division in the Ministry of Education in 1972.

Life

Ehrich's father Emil was a farmer and innkeeper. After high school in Braunschweig he studied on a scholarship from the studienstiftung and the German Academic Exchange Service English, history, pedagogy and philosophy in Göttingen, Bonn and London and was at the Georg-August University of Göttingen in 1932 with laude Cum for Dr . phil is doing his doctorate . He was a member of the Kösener Corps Teutonia (now: Teutonia-Hercynia) Göttingen. He joined the NSDAP ( membership no. 350.975) on November 1, 1930 . From May to July 1933 he was a member of the SA .

time of the nationalsocialism

During the National Socialist era , Ehrich was head of the cultural department of the NSDAP's foreign organization (joined on July 25, 1933). First as an adjutant , later as a personal advisor to AO boss Ernst Wilhelm Bohle , he made a significant contribution to the development of this organization. In addition, he was district chairman of the NS teachers' association for the NSDAP district "Abroad", co-editor of the German school organ . Draft of a National Socialist school program and national group leader of the NSDAP / AO in France and Italy with headquarters in Paris and Rome .

Ehrich had been a civil servant in the Foreign Office (AA) since 1937, initially when he took up his post in April 1937 as legation secretary and personal assistant to the head of the NSDAP's foreign organization at the AA. In 1939 he was in the Helsinki embassy with a special order for the evacuation of Finnish Germans, then from November 1939 worked at the embassy in Rome . In June 1941 he was promoted to Legation Councilor First Class. From November 1943 he worked for the Plenipotentiary of the Greater German Reich at the Italian fascist national government in Fasano . In the meantime he was employed in the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS , most recently in the rank of Obersturmführer (Oberleutnant) in the Waffen SS, to which he was promoted in November 1943. In May 1944 he was transferred to the party chancellery of the NSDAP in Munich before he did military service again from September 1944.

post war period

Ehrich was arrested on October 3, 1945 in the British zone and housed as an intern in the Westertimke and Sandbostel camps ( Stade administrative district ) until March 1948 . From there he carried out his denazification , which lasted until June 1949. The denazification proceedings against Ehrich ended in June 1949 with his discharge (Category V), whereby so-called Persilscheine also helped him, such as a letter from Bishop Alois Hudal , which, according to the historian Hans-Jürgen Döscher , has been identified in a number of cases since the end of the war "Escape helpers for numerous National Socialists, especially SS leaders" had operated. In his letter of November 25, 1946, Hudal attested to him that “Herr Legationrat Dr. Emil Ehrich during his activity in Rome ”as a regional group leader of the National Socialist organization abroad“ in no way supported the tyranny ”of the Nazi regime, but on the contrary,“ helped those persecuted politically or racially ”.

After his release from internment in March 1948, Ehrich initially worked as an employee of the Georg-Westermann-Schulbuchverlag . After the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany , Ehrich was from 1949 a consultant in the Federal Ministry for Affairs of the Federal Council , where he enjoyed the confidence of Federal Minister Heinrich Hellwege . After discovering his Nazi past, Ehrich had to resign from this office. After the SPD member Gerhard Lütkens, in a budget debate in the Bundestag on March 30, 1950, questioned the suitability of Hans Globke and Emil Ehrich for prominent positions as ministerial officials due to their Nazi past, Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer , in whom he defended Globke , reacted , however Ehrich's activity as envoy of the NSDAP abroad, declared as “not particularly suitable”, now “to work in a federal ministry”.

In 1951 he acted in the election for the Second Lower Saxony State Parliament (May 6, 1951) as election officer of the "Low German Union", an electoral alliance made up of the CDU and DP .

With the election of Hellweges as Prime Minister of Lower Saxony in 1955, Ehrich's real post-war career began as a senior civil servant. On March 1, 1956, Ehrich was appointed by Prime Minister Hellweg to the Upper Government Council and assigned to the Representation of Lower Saxony in Bonn. There he was responsible for socio-political and cultural-political matters. After his promotion to government director in 1963, he was transferred to the Ministry of Culture in Hanover and worked there until 1973. At first he acted as a consultant for development aid and matters of international organizations, from 1968 as head of unit. Ehrich reached the high point of his career in 1972, when he was entrusted with the management of the “Cabinet Affairs” department with the rank of Ministerial Councilor. Ehrich's last employer was Education Minister Peter von Oertzen (SPD) from 1970 to 1973.

After Ehrich's death on July 16, 1982, an obituary by the Ministry of Culture read: “The deceased worked for 35 years in the public service. From 1963 until his retirement in 1973 he was a member of the Lower Saxony Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs and headed the cabinet affairs department with great skill and commitment. "

Fonts

  • Southey and Landor, A Study of Their Literary, Spiritual, and Human Relationships. Dissertation from 1932, Göttingen 1934.
  • The foreign organization of the NSDAP. (= Writings of the German School of Politics: Organizational Structure of the Third Reich, Issue 13). Junker u. Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1937. Was placed on the list of literature to be segregated in the Soviet occupation zone after the end of the Second World War .
  • German party - conservative conscience. In: The Parliament of February 8, 1956.
  • Lower Saxony 1955–1959. 4 years of planning and construction; a government program that has been realized. Press office of the state government (publisher), Hanover 1959.
  • State of Lower Saxony. Nature and Reality of the Federal Order. Representation of the State of Lower Saxony at the federal level (publisher), Buchdruck-Werkstätten, 1959.
  • Heinrich Hellwege. A conservative democrat. Lower Saxony State Center for Political Education (publisher), Hanover 1977.

literature

  • Hans-Jürgen Döscher : Emil Ehrich (1908–1982), a German career between National Socialists and "conservative democrats" . In: Lower Saxony Yearbook for State History. Organ of the historical association for Lower Saxony in Hanover. Edited by the Historical Commission for Lower Saxony and Bremen. Volume 85 (2013), pp. 1201-1210.
  • Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Edited by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Vol. 1: Johannes Hürter (arr.): A – F. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2000, ISBN 3-506-71840-1 , p. 492f.
  • Hans-Peter Schwarz , Frank-Lothar Kroll , Manfred Nebelin : files on the foreign policy of the Federal Republic of Germany. Vol. 1: Adenauer and the High Commissioners 1949–1951. Edited by the Foreign Office, Oldenbourg, Munich 1989, p. 595.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Kösener Corpslisten 1996, 168/425 and 172/214
  2. Hans-Jürgen Döscher: Emil Ehrich (1908–1982), a German career between National Socialists and “conservative democrats” . In: Lower Saxony Yearbook for State History. Volume 85 (2013), pp. 1201-1210, here pp. 1202f.
  3. ^ Hans-Adolf Jacobsen : National Socialist Foreign Policy 1933–1938. Metzner, Frankfurt am Main 1968, p. 115 ( excerpt ).
  4. Ronald M. Smelser : The Sudeten Problem and the Third Reich 1933-1938. Publications of the Collegium Carolinum , vol. 36. Oldenbourg, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-486-48581-4 , p. 28 ( excerpt ).
  5. ^ Winfried R. Garscha : The German-Austrian working group. Publications on contemporary history, Vol. 4. Geyer, Vienna 1984, p. 66 ( excerpt ).
  6. ^ Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Edited by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Vol. 1: Johannes Hürter (arr.): A – F. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2000, p. 492f.
  7. Hans-Jürgen Döscher: Emil Ehrich (1908–1982), a German career between National Socialists and “conservative democrats” . In: Lower Saxony Yearbook for State History. Volume 85 (2013), pp. 1205f.
  8. ^ Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Edited by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Vol. 1: Johannes Hürter (arr.): A – F. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2000, p. 493.
  9. ^ Hanns Jürgen Küsters: Documents on Germany policy. 1996, p. 871.
  10. Norbert Frei : Politics of the Past. Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-41310-2 , p. 337 .
  11. Dominik Rigoll : State Security in West Germany. From denazification to defense against extremists (= contributions to the history of the 20th century. Ed. By Norbert Frei . Vol. 13). Wallstein, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-8353-1076-6 (also dissertation, Free University Berlin, 2010), p. 63; see. also Hans-Jürgen Döscher: Emil Ehrich (1908–1982), a German career between National Socialists and “conservative democrats” . In: Lower Saxony Yearbook for State History. Volume 85 (2013), pp. 1201-1210, here p. 1209.
  12. Hans-Jürgen Döscher: Emil Ehrich (1908–1982), a German career between National Socialists and “conservative democrats” . In: Lower Saxony Yearbook for State History. Volume 85 (2013), pp. 1201-1210, here p. 1210.
  13. Quotation from Hans-Jürgen Döscher: Emil Ehrich (1908–1982), a German career between National Socialists and “conservative democrats” . In: Lower Saxony Yearbook for State History. Volume 85 (2013), p. 1210.
  14. List of auszusondernden literature, letter E .