Erwin Ettel

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Erwin Ettel , pseudonym after 1945 Ernst Krüger (born June 30, 1895 in Cologne , † September 9, 1971 in Bad Bevensen ) was a German diplomat, National Socialist, SS leader and editor.

Life

Ettel, the son of a pastor, grew up in a conservative family loyal to the emperor. After finishing his school career of the grammar school in Rathenow began Ettel 1913 in the Imperial Navy as a midshipman careers for professional soldiers. At the First World War Ettel participated as a soldier and left the army in 1920 with the rank of lieutenant to sea . Ettel then worked commercially for a year with the American Friends Service Committee and three years with Jordan und Berger GmbH in Hamburg and from 1925 headed the air freight department of Junkers Luftverkehr AG , from which he was posted to Turkey and Persia.

Ettel moved to Colombia in 1930 , where he worked for the German-Colombian airline Scadta in Barranquilla . Politically Ettel was völkisch-nationalist , had been a member of the German National People's Party since 1924 and became a member of the NSDAP ( membership number 952.856) and local group leader of the NSDAP / AO in early March 1932 . After the National Socialists came to power in Germany, Ettel became regional group leader of the NSDAP's foreign organization in Colombia in November. Ettel, who returned to the German Reich in 1935 , was promoted to captain of the reserve, promoted to Gauamtsleiter zbV in the NSDAP bureaucracy and, at the instigation of the head of the NSDAP / AO Ernst Wilhelm Bohle, moved to the higher service of the Foreign Office in 1936 . In personal union, Ettel took over the post of legation secretary in Rome and the national group leader of the NSDAP / AO in Italy. In a first speech there, he praised the "belief in the Führer and the National Socialist worldview" and "the miracle of faith that saved Germany". Ettel joined the SS on November 9, 1937 (SS no. 289.261) and in 1941 achieved the rank of SS brigade leader .

On October 16, 1939, Ettel became Germany's envoy to Iran . This was linked to the hope of curbing British influence in the Middle East in collaboration with Arab nationalists . As envoy and cultural advisor for the embassy, ​​he recommended transforming existing religious resentments towards Judaism into racist anti-Semitism and using "religion as a natural medium for propagating hatred of Jews". Ettel suggested:

“One way of promoting this development would be to clearly work out the struggle of Muhammad against the Jews in old times and that of the Führer in recent times [...] If you combine this with the equation of British and Jews , it becomes an extremely effective anti-Semitic Propaganda carried to the Shiite Iranian people. "

When Iran was occupied by the British Army in August 1941 , Ettel returned to Germany via Istanbul. Previously, he had demanded “safe conduct” and protection for the numerous National Socialists in the country from the government; however, this was only granted to women, children and official members of the embassy, ​​but not to secret agents. From Istanbul on July 24, 1942, Ettel initiated Arabic-language radio broadcasts from Zeesen for the transmission of secret messages through a letter declared as a secret Reich affair to the Orient Department of the Foreign Office . By Joachim von Ribbentrop Ettel was appointed in June 1942 as the supervisor of the Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammed Amin al-Husseini . Ettel met with al-Husseini in Berlin as early as June 1942 and put the following on the record of the meeting:

“The Grand Mufti went into the struggle of the Arabs against the Jews , drawing parallels with the struggle of National Socialist Germany against the Jews. Germany is the only country in the world that does not limit itself to waging the fight against the Jews in its own country, but has uncompromisingly declared war on world Jewry . In Germany's struggle against world Jewry, the Arabs felt extremely close to Germany. "

Due to the unfavorable course of the war for the German Reich, Ettel had to give up his plan to be appointed governor after an intended occupation of the Middle East. Instead, he was initially responsible for the correspondence between the Foreign Ministry and the NSDAP / AO. In December 1943 Ettel was released from service in the Foreign Ministry at his instigation by Ribbentrop and immediately switched from the Wehrmacht to the Waffen SS . In the Waffen-SS he reached the rank of Hauptsturmführer d. R. At first Ettel was used as a company commander and instructor. Most recently, Ettel worked for the SS training regiment in Putlos and the training center for SS armored troops in Bergen .

From 1950 to 1956 Ettel worked under the pseudonym "Ernst Krüger" as a foreign policy editor for the magazine Die Zeit . He filed his contributions in folders, which u. a. were labeled with “sects, lodges, racial issues” or “espionage, treason, communism, criminal organizations, DPs, corruption, justice system”. His articles were partly enriched with National Socialist terms and nationalist ideas. In the course of the departure of Zeit editor-in-chief Richard Tüngel , Ettel also left the editorial team. He went into retirement and, as a former employee of the Foreign Office, received a pension as Counselor 1st class. Ettel was no longer politically active after the end of the war, but continued to sympathize with the National Socialist ideology, as can be seen from correspondence with former party friends.

Archival material

In the “Political Archive” of the AA there is a hand file “HA Ettel” with documents on German Middle East policy, the cooperation with the Mufti and the planned anti-Jewish measures in the region.

literature

  • Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 1: Johannes Hürter : A – F. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2000, ISBN 3-506-71840-1
  • Ernst Klee : The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 .
  • Frank Bajohr : The man who was Ernst Krüger at ZEIT. For six years, from 1950 to 1956, he wrote for our newspaper under a false name. Only now was his true identity discovered: behind "Ernst Krüger" hid the diplomat and SS general Erwin Ettel. Die Zeit, February 23, 2006, # 9, p. 94 online
  • Frank Bajohr: "For the rest, I act as my conscience tells me as a National Socialist". Erwin Ettel - from SS Brigade Leader to Foreign Policy Editor for ZEIT. In Jürgen Matthäus & Klaus-Michael Mallmann (eds.), Germans, Jews, Genocide. The Holocaust as Past and Present. WBG , Darmstadt 2006, ISBN 3-534-18481-5 , pp. 241-255

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ in the lit. there is often the misspelling "Ettl"
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Frank Bajohr: The man who was Ernst Krüger at ZEIT. In: Die Zeit Hamburg, edition of February 23, 2006, number 9, p. 94.
  3. ↑ a b c Ernst Klee: The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 128.
  4. ^ Matthias Küntzel: From Goebbels to Ahmadinejad. About the anti-Semitic radio propaganda of the Nazis in Iran . In tribune (magazine) for understanding Judaism . 49th volume, issue 196, 4th quarter 2010, pp. 145–153, here p. 147.
  5. ↑ Erwin Ettel. Quoted from: Matthias Küntzel: From Goebbels to Ahmadinejad. About the anti-Semitic radio propaganda of the Nazis in Iran . In tribune (magazine) for understanding Judaism . Volume 49, issue 196, 4th quarter 2010, p. 147 f.
  6. ↑ Bernd Philipp Schröder: Germany and the Middle East in the Second World War. Series: Studies and documents on the history of WWII, edited by the Working Group for Defense Research , 16. Musterschmidt, Göttingen 1975, p. 256
  7. ↑ online (PDF; 2.0 MB) estate of Gerhard Höpp: The Koran as a "Secret Reichssache".
  8. ↑ Ettel in a protocol after his conversation with al-Husseini in June 1942 . In: Sönke Zankel: The Jew as Anti-Muslim. Amin al-Husseini and the "Jewish Question" . In: Niklas Günther & Sönke Zankel Ed .: Abraham's grandchildren: Jews, Christians, Muslims and the Shoah. Stuttgart 2006, p. 49, ISBN 978-3-515-08979-1 .
  9. ↑ Short biography in Polish
  10. ↑ 'The man who was at ZEIT Ernst Krüger Zeit-Online, from ZEIT No. 09/2006
  11. ↑ in several parts: "Grand Mufti 2 (1942)" & "Grand Mufti 3 (1942/43) &" Grand Mufti in general (4) 1942/43 "as well as" Caucasus, Arab countries of the Middle East, Egypt etc. (1942) "
  12. ↑ First evaluated by Bernd Philipp Schröder: Germany and the Middle East in World War II. Series: Studies and documents on the history of WWII., Ed. Working group for military research, 16. Musterschmidt, Göttingen 1975 ISBN 3788114169 , also in the excursion "Orient legions".
personal data
SURNAME Ettel, Erwin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kruger, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat under National Socialism and time editor
DATE OF BIRTH June 30, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH September 9, 1971
Place of death Bad Bevensen