Eric Grant Cable

Eric Grant Cable (born February 25, 1887 , † 1970 ) was a British diplomat .

Life and activity

Cable was a son of James Cable. He was educated at the Universities of Helsingfors , London and Heidelberg . From 1904 to 1907 and 1908 to 1912 he worked at the British consulate in Helsingfors . From 1909 to 1911 he held the post of executive consul there.

After passing the diplomatic service entrance exam, Cable was appointed Vice Consul in the British Consular Service on October 15, 1913. From February to July 1914 it was used in the British Mission in Hamburg and then, in view of the imminent outbreak of the First World War, was transferred to Rotterdam , where it stayed from July to August 1914.

On August 29, 1914 Cable was appointed acting British consul in Iceland , based in Reykjavík . An appointment as Vice Consul in Majunga for February 20, 1915 was not carried out in practice. Instead, he was appointed with the appointment date of November 23, 1915 as a regular consul for Iceland. He remained in this post until 1919 (from 1916 to 1917 he also headed the French Vice Consulate in Iceland as a substitute).

From December 1919 to February 1920, Cable served as the acting consul in Dunkirk . He was then used in Riga . On May 6, 1920 he was appointed acting consul there, which he remained until August 11, 1920. From September 1920 to July 1922 Cable was then employed in the Foreign Office . From 1922 to 1926 he was deployed in Oslo and from 1926 to 1929 in Gdansk . From 1929 to 1931 Cable was part of the British Mission in Portland and then from 1932 to 1933 that of Seattle . From 1933 to 1939 Cable was Consul and Trade Secretary at the British Mission in Copenhagen .

In 1939 Cable was appointed British Consul General in Cologne . Due to the outbreak of World War II, he was transferred to Rotterdam, where he stayed until 1940. From 1940 to 1941 he was employed in the Ministry of the Interior and then for a few months in the Northern Department of the Foreign Office before he was appointed British Consul General in Zurich in 1941 . He held this post until his retirement in 1947.

During the last years of the war, Cable maintained numerous secret relationships with German diplomats, such as the German consul in Lugano, Alexander von Neurath , ... Theodor Kordt and the State Secretary in the Foreign Office Ernst von Weizsäcker , with whom he negotiated an initiative to end the war . In particular, he was also in contact with the head of the SS intelligence service, Walter Schellenberg , who, on behalf of Heinrich Himmler , got in touch with Cable in order to explore possibilities for ending the war. However, on the instructions of Adolf Hitler , who was informed of this by Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop , these contacts were (officially) prevented. On the other hand, records of the American representative in Zurich, Allen Dulles , show that Cable was still holding talks with Neurath in November 1944 about the plan to contact the SS leadership in order to initiate a peace initiative.

In 1946, Cable looked after Winston Churchill during his stay in Zurich, during which he gave his famous Zurich speech.

family

Since 1919 Cable was married to Nellie Margaret Skelton.

literature

• The Foreign Office List and Diplomatic and Consular Year Book , 1949.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Charles Bloch : The Third Reich and the World: The German Foreign Policy 1933-1945 , p. 399; Kerstin von Lingen : SS and Secret Service: "Conspiracy of Silence": the Karl Wolff files , 2010, p. 53; Peter Day: The Bedbug: Klop Ustinov: Britain's Most Ingenious Spy , 2015.
2. ^ Max Sauter: Churchill's Swiss visit in 1946 and the Zurich speech , 1971, p. 23.