Feldscher action

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As a surgeon action or surgeon-matter referred to in the internal language of the Foreign Office (AA) in the era of National Socialism a series of diplomatic attempts of various countries, in 1943 and 1944, the exit permit for a limited number of the German Government Jews in Germany from the To obtain domination. The most important of these diplomatic advances was undertaken by the Swiss ambassador in Berlin, Peter Anton Feldscher , who, on behalf of the British government - whose protective power interests were against the German government during the war - tried to get 5,000 Jewish people, mostly children, to leave the country to enable the sphere of influence of the German Reich .

Course of action

The emigration of 7,000 Jewish children to Palestine , which the Romanian Prime Minister Marshal Ion Antonescu had promised and brought this intention to the attention of the German envoy in Bucharest Manfred von Killinger in April 1943 , failed because of the delaying tactics of Department Inland II of the Foreign Office and the contradiction of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). Whose Jewish affairs Adolf Eichmann explained that the emigration of Jewish children is fundamentally reject. At most, the emigration of 5,000 Jewish children from the occupied eastern territories could be allowed if, in return, four times the number of reproductive Germans interned abroad could be returned to Germany. The corresponding negotiations would have to be brought to an end quickly, however, since in the near future, according to Eichmann, “as a result of our Jewish measures”, the emigration of the children “will no longer be technically possible”.

Now the Swiss envoy Peter Anton surgeon came in May 1943 to the Foreign Office with the request of the British government approach, Germany may the emigration of 5,000 Jews, including 85 percent of children and 15 percent of adults, from Poland , Lithuania and Latvia to Palestine agree. He also asked whether, in the opinion of the German government, the emigration of Jewish children from Germany itself and the occupied territories of the Netherlands , Belgium , Greece and Serbia was not possible. In the Foreign Office, a process was immediately set in motion to find an answer to Feldscher's request, in which various departments were involved and which pursued the aim of being able to reject the unwanted departure of the Jewish children if necessary, cleverly for propaganda purposes. For example, on June 25, 1943, the Inland II Division presented the other departments of the Foreign Office with a memorandum drawn up by the Jewish advisor Eberhard von Thadden and signed by his boss Horst Wagner , which contained conditions that were unacceptable for Great Britain:

“England should agree to allow the Jews to enter England instead of Palestine, and should prove this willingness by a corresponding decision of the House of Commons; it was to be expected that the English would not comply with these demands, and then the responsibility would rest on them; but should England unexpectedly agree, then this process can be evaluated propagandistically and give Germany the opportunity to propose the exchange of Jews for interned Germans. "

All comments on the proposed propaganda procedure were positive. Individuals agreed: Gerhard Rühle , head of the broadcasting policy department, Paul-Otto Schmidt , head of the ministerial office, his namesake Paul Karl Schmidt , head of the press department, and Karl Megerle , another propaganda specialist at the office. The historian Sebastian Weitkamp stated that for the Foreign Office "the Feldscher demarche very quickly became a pure propaganda enterprise". As the topic attracted increasing international attention, with the International Red Cross declaring it wanted to bring over 3,000 Jewish children from France and Belgium to the Middle East , Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop opted for “a persistent delaying tactic [...] which was practically the same as a smooth obstruction ”, so that no answer was given.

It was not until January 1944 that Ribbentrop signed a modified template by State Secretary Gustav Adolf Steengracht von Moyland , who had previously repeatedly delayed the revision of the response to Feldscher's request requested by Ribbentrop, and presented it to the envoy Feldscher. The British reply, which Feldscher brought to the Foreign Office on March 8, 1944, declared the willingness to take in the Jewish children in England, but rejected the German request to return German internees “since German nationals are only exchanged for members of the British Empire could ". The Inland II Division immediately recommended Ribbentrop to regard this British response as a rejection of the German proposal to exchange Jewish children for German internees, but not to formally break off the negotiations, but to "quietly let it rest". In April 1944, the minister himself wavered over the question of the emigration of 1,500 Jews from Romania to Palestine and revoked the consent he had initially given a few hours later. Feldscher's inquiries about the departure of the 5,000 Jewish children were not answered, and in July 1944 the Foreign Office declared the "pursuit of the Feldscher matter" "inexpedient" in an internal memorandum approved by Ribbentrop. In agreement with the Reich Security Main Office, the Inland II Department of the Foreign Office, in cooperation with its other departments responsible for propaganda purposes, succeeded in preventing the children from leaving the country. This meant that both the British interventions reported by Feldscher to rescue 5,000 Jewish children and similar inquiries from other countries had become obsolete.

Prosecution after 1945

In the Wilhelmstrasse trial , “State Secretary Steengracht was declared guilty in 1949 for knowingly dragging on the Feldscher affair”. The judgment states:

“We are dealing with one of the rare cases in which Ribbentrop, in his capacity as Foreign Minister, has turned to his Foreign Office for advice; The Foreign Office and its State Secretary finally had the opportunity to advise for good and not bad; Here it could have been pointed out that it would help to improve Germany's foreign policy relations and to restore its reputation in the world if it was tolerated that at least children were saved from annihilation. But all the steps taken by the Foreign Office, all its advice, were aimed at destroying the efforts of respected neutral and hostile powers, [...] their offer [was] to be twisted into National Socialist propaganda. Steengracht participated in these acts. He is therefore guilty within the meaning of point V of the indictment. "

Various investigations by the public prosecutor against other employees of the Foreign Office because of the approval of measures to exterminate the Jews and the propaganda rejection of the Feldscher action fizzled out in the 1960s. This applies not only to the proceedings against Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden from Division Inland II, but also to the investigations initiated against Paul Karl, the head of department and first class envoy in the Foreign Office, because of their support for the propagandistic proposals of Division Inland II Schmidt (press), Paul-Otto Schmidt (ministerial office) and against the propaganda expert Ribbentrops, Karl Megerle.

Historical evaluation

The two historians Eberhard Kolb and Sebastian Weitkamp , who worked on the subject of the “Feldscher Action” most intensively, consider the above-cited text of the verdict in the Wilhelmstrasse trial against State Secretary Steengracht to be true. According to Kolb, the course of the Feldscher action shows "in a startling way the method and mentality with which the leading officials of the Foreign Office have acted in this important matter". Since "even Ribbentrop", according to Sebastian Weitkamp in his dissertation on Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden, "had given his approval for a limited departure, even if only for hours", the minister's advisors had ruined the human chance of " with reference to a favorable foreign policy reaction abroad, [to] [use] for a departure or an exchange ”.

The Independent Commission of Historians - Foreign Office mentioned the Feldscher action in its study of "German diplomats in the Third Reich and in the Federal Republic" only once in connection with Paul Karl Schmidt, who was known as a bestselling author on the Barbarossa company after the war under his pseudonym Paul Carell and thus summarized the usual evaluation of the processes:

“In the 'Feldscher Affair', he [Schmidt] took part in a haggling between the Reich government for the lives of 5,000 Jewish children, for whose exit permit the Swiss envoy PA Feldscher campaigned on May 12, 1943 on behalf of the British government in Berlin would have."

literature

  • Eberhard Kolb: Bergen Belsen. History of the labor camp 1943–1945 . Verlag für Literatur und Zeitgeschehen, Hannover 1962, pp. 295–298 (Section: Appendix. Excursus I. The Feldscher Action 1943/44 ).
  • The verdict in the Wilhelmstrasse trial. The official wording of the decision in case no. 11 of the Nuremberg Military Tribunal against von Weizsäcker and others, with differing reasons for the judgment, corrective decisions, the basic legal provisions, a list of court officials and witnesses. Introductions by Robert MW Kempner and Carl Haensel . Alfons Bürger Verlag, Schwäbisch Gmünd 1950, pp. 101-104.
  • Hermann Weiß: Feldscher Action . In: Encyclopedia of National Socialism . Edited by Wolfgang Benz , Hermann Graml and Hermann Weiß. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-608-91805-1 , p. 460.
  • Sebastian Weitkamp: Brown diplomats. Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden as functionaries of the “Final Solution” . JHW Dietz, Bonn 2008, ISBN 978-3-8012-4178-0 , pp. 209–230 (section: Feldscher-Aktion. Negotiations about the departure of Jewish children ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Originally there was talk of 70,000 Jewish children, but this was based on a transmission error with one zero too many, see Eberhard Kolb: Bergen Belsen. History of the labor camp 1943–1945 . Hanover 1962, p. 296.
  2. ^ The judgment in the Wilhelmstrasse trial . Schwäbisch Gmünd 1950, p. 102.
  3. ^ The judgment in the Wilhelmstrasse trial . Schwäbisch Gmünd 1950, p. 103; Hermann Weiß: Feldscher Action . In: Encyclopedia of National Socialism . Edited by Wolfgang Benz , Hermann Graml and Hermann Weiß. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-608-91805-1 , p. 460, wrote there by mistake: “The German site that was not interested in the exchange only wanted to accept the British offer if the children would have been placed in Palestine. ”According to the sources and the mentioned secondary scientific literature, it should have been correctly said“ if the children were to be housed in England ”.
  4. ↑ Sebastian Weitkamp: Brown diplomats. Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden as functionaries of the “Final Solution” . JHW Dietz, Bonn 2008, p. 218 f.
  5. ↑ a b c d Eberhard Kolb: Bergen Belsen. History of the labor camp 1943–1945 . Hanover 1962, p. 297.
  6. ↑ a b Sebastian Weitkamp: Brown diplomats. Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden as functionaries of the “Final Solution” . JHW Dietz, Bonn 2008, p. 229.
  7. ↑ Sebastian Weitkamp: Brown diplomats. Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden as functionaries of the “Final Solution” . JHW Dietz, Bonn 2008, p. 230.
  8. ^ The judgment in the Wilhelmstrasse trial . Schwäbisch Gmünd 1950, p. 104.
  9. ↑ Sebastian Weitkamp: Brown diplomats. Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden as functionaries of the “Final Solution” . JHW Dietz, Bonn 2008, pp. 387-439.
  10. ^ Wigbert Benz: Paul Carell. Ribbentrop's press officer Paul Karl Schmidt before and after 1945 . Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-86573068-X , p. 88 ff.
  11. ↑ Eberhard Kolb: Bergen Belsen. History of the labor camp 1943–1945 . Hanover 1962, p. 297 f.
  12. ↑ Eckart Conze, Norbert Frei, Peter Hayes, Moshe Zimmermann: The office and the past. German diplomats in the Third Reich and in the Federal Republic . Karl Blessing Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-89667-430-2 , p. 148 f.