Franz Bopp (diplomat)

Franz Bopp (born November 14, 1862 in Worbis in the Saxony area, † February 15, 1929 in Berlin ) was a German diplomat .

Life

Franz Bopp was born the son of the District Court Councilor Wilhelm Bopp and his wife Clara, née Reichhardt. Upbringing at home followed the values ​​of the Protestant faith. He attended the Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Berlin and graduated from high school on September 21, 1880. He then studied law and political science at the universities in Lausanne and Berlin . He passed the legal traineeship exam on November 21, 1883 and was then employed in the Prussian judicial service from December 6th. In April 1884 he went to the Prussian military service as a one-year volunteer, which lasted until March of the following year. He was promoted to secondary lieutenant in the reserve on August 16, 1885. In January 1889 he passed his assessor examination.

In the foreign service

In April 1889, Franz Bopp was drafted into the Foreign Service and began a consular career in the Foreign Office in Berlin in Department III (Law). A year later, in February, he moved to Department II (Trade Policy). His first assignment abroad took him to the German consulate in Chicago in May 1892 . With the character of a vice consul, he was responsible for the temporary filling of the position of vice consul. The German ambassador to the USA at this time was Theodor von Holleben (1852–1908). His position as Vice Consul was confirmed to Bopp on May 17, 1894. In the same year he married N. Vocke, the daughter of the legal advisor at the German consulate in Chicago, Wilhelm Vocke. In 1896, Bopp's time in Chicago was briefly interrupted from July to October by a temporary assignment in Department III (Law) at the Foreign Office in Berlin. On March 19, 1896, he moved from Berlin to the consulate in Montreal to take over the management on site. In June of the same year he was appointed consul. His service time in Montreal came to an end in September 1904 and he took over the business of the consulate in San Francisco on October 24, 1904 . During this time Hermann Speck von Sternburg (1852–1908) was German ambassador to the USA. In the following year, Bopp was confirmed as consul on April 10, and in March 1913 was given the status of consul general. At the latest in this final phase of his service in San Francisco, Bopp was involved in the espionage and sabotage ring organized by the military attaché Franz von Papen (1879–1969) and the naval attaché Karl Boy-Ed (1872–1930) from the embassy in Washington. Covering their diplomatic status, the embassy staff were Franz von Rintelen (1878–1949), the assistant to the military attaché von Papen Wolf von Igel (1888–1970), and Hans Tauscher (1867–1941), who was a company representative of the Krupp works , the economic attaché the government in Berlin Heinrich Friedrich Albert (1874–1960) and the intelligence officer of Section III b Horst von der Goltz (* 1884) active in the intelligence service within this network. Shortly before his recall from San Francisco in 1914, Bopp recruited Kurt Jahnke (1882–1945), who worked as a businessman, to gain information in the field of trade and shipping routes. With the outbreak of World War I, Bopp was recalled from San Francisco. Bopp passed the business on to his deputy Eckhard von Schack (1879–1961). On August 16, when he returned to Germany, Bopp was deployed to the Foreign Office in the censorship office to monitor the press. But on March 14, 1915, he returned to San Francisco, now without diplomatic status.

Back in San Francisco

From San Francisco in 1915, Franz Bopp continued the intelligence work within the group around the two military attachés of the German embassy in Washington Boy-Ed and von Papen, using his local network of contacts and informants. In violation of the neutrality laws passed by the US Congress in 1915, they planned the destruction of ammunition factories, transport routes and transshipment points for war goods in the USA, they recruited skilled workers from the armaments industry, created artificial bottlenecks for raw materials for weapons production and the delivery of weapons to Great Britain, founded so-called "war news offices" to collect militarily important information. And they intervened in the passport and visa sovereignty of the USA through forgery and bribery. From this point on, however, another focus was added which, in the organization of insurrection projects to trigger rebellions in the colonial countries of England and France, should ultimately weaken Germany's war opponents. This included the use of agent provocateurs, the distribution of propaganda material in the selected regions as well as the handing over of weapons and funds to bribe the leading political figures of "anti-colonial organizations". Franz Bopp's area of ​​operations to trigger “national” uprisings were India , Thailand , Siam and Shanghai . At least three of the secret arms deliveries that Bopp helped organize in the regions concerned failed because they were discovered and prevented. The main organizer for this was the head of Section III b in the Deputy General Staff in Berlin, Captain Rudolf Nadolny (1873–1953). Several of the intelligence officers commissioned in this area were coordinated through the Bopp office in San Francisco, including Mr. Georg Paul Böhm, Henry Schult and Albert Wehde, who were assigned to work in Siam. Other people were given his address to contact and continue their travel activities, such as the naval intelligence officer Lothar Witzke (1895–1962), who visited him in early 1916 after his escape from Chilean imprisonment and reported to him.

In February 1916, Franz Bopp and several of his "contributors" to the preparations for the uprising, in the so-called "Hindu Plot", including the two German diplomats Wilhelm von Brincken (1881-1946) and Eckhard von Schack, were charged by a US court charged with violating the laws of neutrality and conspiratorial activities. In January of the following year, he was sentenced to imprisonment and a fine for further offenses in this connection. Almost immediately he was put into temporary retirement by his highest employer, the Foreign Office, with effect from April 9, 1917. In December 1917 he stood before a US court again and this time was charged with his involvement in the Indo-German insurrections from 1914 to 1916 and for violating US gun laws. It was here that he was sentenced to imprisonment in May 1918, which he had to serve immediately. On October 6, 1920, as a result of an amnesty, he was released early from prison and returned to Germany.

In Germany

After that, when he returned to Germany, Franz Bopp was accepted into the Foreign Office, now the Reich Ministry of the Weimar Republic , on January 25, 1921 . An exact use of his person was not noted. But on December 6, 1924 he was appointed lecturer of the Legation Council.

family

During his tenure as Vice Consul at the German Consulate in Chicago, Franz Bopp married on May 17, 1894 N. Vocke, the daughter of the legal advisor at the German Consulate in Chicago. This marriage resulted in 3 children, including Franz Bopp, born on May 11, 1904. He married for the second time on February 19, 1921, his second wife was Anne Schreiber.

Franz Bopp died on February 15th in Berlin.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945, Ed. Foreign Office, Schöningh Verlag 2005, Volume 1, pp. 235f.
2. ^ Biographical sketches of the two military attachés of the German embassy in Washington: Carl Boy-Ed and Franz von Papen, in: Marineattaché, Books LLC, Wiki Series, Mephis USA, 2011, p. 35ff. and p. 15ff.
3. ↑ Reinhard R Doerries, Tracing Kurt Jahnke: Aspects of the Study of German Intelligence; in: Georg O. Kent (Ed.) Historians and Archives, Fairfax 1991, pp. 27ff.
4. ^ Johannes Reiling: Germany, safe for democracy ?. Subtitle: German-American relations from the area of ​​activity Heinrich F. Alberts, Imperial Privy Councilor in America, First State Secretary of the Reich Chancellery of the Weimar Republic, Reich Minister, Supervisor of the Ford companies in the territory of the Third Reich 1914 to 1945 America and Germany between War and Peace, Contempt and admiration, enmity and friendship, Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, p. 124ff.
5. ↑ Article: Other Conspiracy Charges; German Consul General and his alleged aides again accused, New York Times of February 11, 1916
6. ↑ Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945, Ed. Foreign Office, Schöningh Verlag 2005, Volume 1, pp. 235f.

literature

• Johannes Reiling: Germany, safe for democracy ?. Subtitle: German-American relations from the area of ​​activity Heinrich F. Alberts, Imperial Privy Councilor in America, First State Secretary of the Reich Chancellery of the Weimar Republic, Reich Minister, Supervisor of the Ford companies in the territory of the Third Reich 1914 to 1945 America and Germany between War and Peace, Contempt and admiration, enmity and friendship, Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1997.
• Biographical manual of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945, published by the Foreign Office, Schöningh Verlag 2005, Volume 1, pp. 235f.
• Article: Further Conspiracy Charges; German Consul General and his alleged aides again accused, New York Times of February 11, 1916
• Article: Von Brincken indicted in court, German attaché and associate in San Francisco; New York Times December 5, 1915