Erich Otto Meynen

Ernst Erich Otto Meynen (born September 12, 1890 in Elberfeld , † January 15, 1954 in Cologne ) was a German diplomat .

Life

Erich Otto Meynen graduated from high school in Cologne and studied law and political science in Oxford , Bonn and Heidelberg from 1909 to 1912 . In 1912 he was promoted to Dr. jur. doctorate, began a legal clerkship in the Prussian judiciary and was a hussar until 1913 . From 1914 to 1918 he took part in the First World War. He fell into Russian captivity, from which he escaped and returned to the German Empire.

Meynen became an assessor in 1920 and entered the foreign service, where he was employed in Department X Foreign Trade until 1922 . From 1922 to 1926 he was accredited to the Helsinki Legation , where he was promoted to Legation Secretary in 1925 . From 1926 to 1928 he was accredited at the Embassy of the German Reich in London . From 1928 to 1931 he was a legation counselor in Department IV Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and East Asia in the Foreign Ministry. He was concerned with the German-Danish archive agreement.

From 1932 to 1936 Meynen was legation counselor at the legation of the German Reich in Stockholm . In 1937 he became a member of the NSDAP and was accredited at the embassy of the German Reich in Buenos Aires .

Patagonia plot

At the beginning of 1939, Meynen negotiated a trade agreement with the government of Argentina , according to which German companies would build a railway line and Argentine sheep wool and wheat would be supplied as a medium-term compensation. The so-called Patagonia plot was a speculation plan for land that would be opened up by the new railroad. Heinrich Juerges, a former employee of Joseph Goebbels , launched plans for extensive land acquisitions by the German Empire in Patagonia and then reported an invasion by the German Empire in Patagonia to the police in Buenos Aires. As a result, the police found documents from members of the NSDAP / AO in Buenos Aires that supported the thesis of a German invasion of Patagonia.

Arms trade

The traditionally dominant role of the German-speaking area as an arms supplier for Argentina was transferred to France after the First World War. The Comisión de Adquisiciones Argentinas en el Extranjero had an office with Mayor Juan L. Bertuch in Paris. After the occupation of Paris by the Wehrmacht in 1940, this office moved to Rome .

The head of the Argentine Federal Police, Domingo Martínez, reported a need for armaments to Eduardo Aunós Pérez . In July 1942 Martínez Meynen conveyed the possibility of purchasing tanks and planes via Spain. On September 5, 1942, Antonio Magaz signed a trade agreement for Francisco Franco with the Argentine Foreign Minister Enrique Ruiz Guiñazú : Argentina should supply 1,000,000 tons of wheat and about 3,130 tons of tobacco, for which the government of Francisco Franco promised to supply 30,000 tons of steel and iron annually to build two merchant ships with 9,000 gross tons and a destroyer of the Cervantes class, as well as to deliver other weapons and ammunition.

The government of Francisco Franco finally admitted to the government of Argentina that the ammunition promised in the treaty did not exist. It is therefore assumed that Spain should only serve as a transfer country for weapons from the sphere of influence of the German Reich.

The Argentine Parliament decided on June 19, 1941 to set up the Comisión Investigadora de Actividades Anti-Argentinas ; this was chaired by MP Raúl Damonte Taborda . Based on the reports of this parliamentary commission of inquiry , Edmund von Thermann was declared persona non grata by the Argentine government in December 1941 . As a result Meynen was appointed charge d'affaires to the severance of diplomatic relations with the German Reich on 26 January 1944th

From 1944 to 1945 Meynen headed the Argentina exchange group in Lisbon . He then worked as a merchant in Lisbon.

In 1953 he joined the foreign service of the Federal Republic of Germany and became a lecturer in the Legation Council at a department of the Foreign Office in Bonn.

Meynen had married Margarete Ispert in 1921 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf . He last lived in Leverkusen-Schlebusch . He died of cancer in 1954 at the age of 63 in Cologne University Hospital .

Web links

• Erich Otto Meynen in the online version of the Reich Chancellery Edition Files. Weimar Republic
• Literature by and about Erich Otto Meynen in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Death certificate no. 494 from February 9, 1954, registry office Cologne I. In: LAV NRW R civil status register. Retrieved October 5, 2018 . 
2. ↑ Erich Otto Meynen in the online version of the Edition Files of the Reich Chancellery. Weimar Republic
3. ↑ hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de (PDF)
4. ^ Daniel B. Roth: Hitler's bridgehead in Sweden: The German legation in Stockholm .
5. ^ Nazi Bungle . In: Time , April 17, 1939
6. ^ German assets: The undaunted forger . In: Der Spiegel . No. 52 , 1956 ( online ).
7. ^ Richard L. McGaha: The Politics of Espionage: Nazi Diplomats and Spies in Argentina, 1933-1945 . (PDF) November 2009, 414 pp.
8. ↑ buenos-aires.diplo.de  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
9. ↑ Buenos Aires, 28. - Los diplomáticos argentinos residentes en Alemania y qu deben ser canjeados son: el encargado de Negocios, Luis Luti; agregado militar aeronáutico, coronel Servando Santllana; agregado naval. capitán de fragata, Eduardo Ceballos; segundo secretario Luis Irigoyen; Agregado militar adjunto, Italo Decarli; consul adscrito, Luis de Bellot; canciller, Alfredo Pons ; La Vanguardia , 29 enero 1944, Al parecer, el canje de diplomáticos se realizará en Lisboa
10. ^ Died: Ambassador Dr. jur. Erich Otto Meynen, Cologne, 63 years. In: Die Zeit , No. 4/1954

predecessor	Office	successor
Edmund von Thermann	Envoy of the German Reich in Buenos Aires 1942–1944	Hermann Terdenge