Franz Thedieck (politician)

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Franz Thedieck as State Secretary in the Ministry for All German Issues, 1960

Franz Josef Bernhard Thedieck (born September 26, 1900 in Hagen ; † November 20, 1995 in Bonn ) was a German politician ( CDU ).

Life and family

Thedieck's parents were the lawyer Josef Thedieck and his wife Johanna. Thedieck junior grew up in the Rhineland , although he was born in Hagen / Westphalia , as his father became district court director in Cologne from 1903 to 1938 - after his son was born. The future Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and the later legal commentator on the Nuremberg Race Law , then head of department, later State Secretary in the Federal Chancellery, Hans Globke , completed at least part of their legal clerkship with Thedieck senior in Cologne.

Franz Thedieck first attended a "Catholic elementary school located near his parents' house" in or near Cologne and later "the Realgymnasium in Cologne-Lindenthal " - which has not been identified in the literature evaluated so far .

Professional activities

From 1923 to 1930 Thedieck was deputy head of the - secret service - Prussian defense office against separatism in the Rhineland . There he met Konrad Adenauer during the uprisings of the Rhenish separatists (cf. Rhenish Republic ) and in 1931 became a member of the government in Cologne - as the representative of the Prussian government for Eupen-Malmedy. He was (also) responsible for infiltration and financing of the German clubs in Eupen-Malmedy , which had belonged to Belgium since the Treaty of Versailles, as part of the national work.

In a dossier of the Upper Section West of the Security Service of the Reichsführer SS (SD) on the various actors in the infiltration policy with regard to the western neighboring countries, it says about Thedieck's work at the Association of Germans Abroad (VDA):

“VDA: The Rhineland regional association under Haake and probably also the Oldenburg and Hamburg regional associations work in the Luxembourg-Holland area. For this area, the above-mentioned government councilor [Franz] Thedieck in Cologne, formerly with the government in Aachen , has been the special representative of the Association of Germans Abroad since about 1920. "

- Fahlbusch , Philanthrop , p. 44 in footnote 11

During the Second World War , Thedieck was from 1941 to 1943 a senior war administrator and “general advisor ”, known as “ Flamenreferent ”, in the office of the Belgian military commander at the time of the persecution of the Jews:

"In April 1943, when the children and the elderly were arrested, the General Secretary of the Belgian Ministry of Justice addressed two letters to Thedieck, Chief War Administrator, in the military commander's office, in which he pointed out that many of the children were not accompanied by their parents and that old people, some of them are over eighty, but hardly fit for work. "

- Hilberg, Vernichtung , p. 640 at footnote 792

With this formulation the National Socialist legend that the deportations of the Jewish population took place for the purpose of work assignments was called into question.

After the Second World War, Thedieck worked as a senior government councilor for the Cologne district .

From 1950 to 1964 he was a permanent state secretary in the Federal Ministry for all-German issues . From 1960 he was chairman of the advisory board of Deutsche Langwelle (later Deutschlandfunk) and from 1966 to 1972 director of Deutschlandfunk .

He was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit with a star and shoulder ribbon , the honor plaque of the Association of Expellees and the Lodgmann plaque of the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft .

In 1946 Thedieck was convicted of forging questionnaires about his activities in Brussels.

Party memberships

During the Weimar Republic , Thedieck was a member of the Center Party . In 1945 he participated in the founding of the CDU. From 1964 to 1968 he was chairman of the CDU-affiliated Konrad Adenauer Foundation .

Works

  • Conversations and encounters with Konrad Adenauer - From half a century of German politics , in: Dieter Blumenwitz / Klaus Gotto / Hans Meier / Konrad Repgen / Hans-Peter Schwarz (eds.), Konrad Adenauer and his time. Politics and personality of the first Federal Chancellor . [Volume 1:] Articles by fellow travelers and contemporaries, DVA: Stuttgart, 1976 ( ISBN 3-421-01752-2 ), 326 - 339.

Secondary literature

Especially about Thedieck's work from 1923 to 1943

  • Burkhard Dietz et al. Ed .: Griff nach dem Westen. The "western research" of the national and national science on the north-western European area 1919-1960 . Waxmann, Münster 2003 ISBN 3830911440 .
  • Raul Hilberg , The annihilation of the European Jews. Vol. 2 , Fischer: Frankfurt am Main, 1994.
  • Bruno Kartheuser: The 30s in Eupen-Malmedy. Insight into the network of Imperial German subversion (Volume 1 of: ders., Walter , SD in Tulle , Krautgarten: St. Vith, 2001 ( library records in the Karlsruhe Virtual Catalog ; book prospectus ; excerpts from French, Dutch and German-language press reviews and other statements on the book )).
  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 , S. Fischer: Frankfurt, 2003 ( ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 ) / updated paperback edition: Fischer: Frankfurt am Main, 2005; 5th edition: 2015, p. 621 (entry on Franz Thedieck).
  • Carlo Lejeune : The German-Belgian cultural relations 1925 - 1980 Böhlau, Cologne 1992 ISBN 3412010928 (Thedieck: pp. 112–212 passim).
  • Martin R. Schärer: German annexation policy in the west. The reintegration of Eupen-Malmedy in the Second World War. (Series: Europäische Hochschulschriften R. 3, History and their auxiliary sciences, vol. 38), Lang: Bern / Frankfurt am Main / Las Vegas, 1st edition: 1975. 2nd, improved edition with an introduction and a register: 1978 (for Thedieck on pages 32 and 108).
  • Maurice de Wilde: België in de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Deel 3: De nieuwe orde . in: DBNL Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse letteren. Uitgeverij Peckmans, Kapellen 1982 (therein interview with Th. December 23, 1981) Table of contents.

Especially about Thedieck's work from 1949

  • Stefan Creuzberger : Fight for unity. The Pan-German Ministry and the Political Culture of the Cold War 1949-1969 (Writings of the Federal Archives 69), Droste; Düsseldorf, 2008; ISBN 978-3-7700-1625-9 (see review at Sehepunkte ) (the 604-page book contains three sections that have Thedieck's name in the title, and numerous other passages on him).
  • Walter Henkels , Franz Thedieck , in: ders., 99 Bonn heads , Econ: Düsseldorf / Vienna, 1963, 107-109.
  • Erich Kosthorst, Jakob Kaiser. Federal Minister for All-German Issues 1949-1957 , Kohlhammer: Stuttgart / Berlin / Cologne / Mainz, 1976 ( ISBN 3-17-210031-6 ) (according to the register of persons: twelve - partly multi-page - passages on Thedieck).
  • Klaus Körner: Herbert Wehner and Franz Thedieck. The Bonn debate on the defense against Western propaganda by the SED 1949–1953. In: Heiner Timmermann: That was the GDR . Münster 2004. ISBN 3-8258-8167-9 (pp. 238-248).

Web links

Catalog entries on Thedieck at the German National Library and archive materials

Others (in alphabetical order of last names)

  • Bruno Kartheuser: Subversion nazie et action secrète. (PDF) L'encadrement nazi et allemand des cantons de l'est de la Belgique. Episodes, aperçus, constat. In: Annexion et nazification en Europe. Actes du colloque de Metz 7 - 8 November 2003. Sylvian Schirmann, pp. 27-46 , archived from the original (French, 6.7 MB; 222 pages. Page 46 contains only a header). ;(About the protagonists of the National Socialist conquest of East Belgium even before the military invasion of 1940: Franz Thedieck, Heinrich Haake et al. And their organizations. Thedieck is mentioned twelve times in the PDF file. A picture of Thedieck can be found on p. 42; on p. 32 is the budget for 1939/40, i.e. before the military conquest of the country, which Thedieck had available for anti-Belgian propaganda in Eupen-Malmedy [113,110 Reichsmarks].)
  • Denise Lindsay: Thedieck, Franz. In: [Homepage]. Konrad Adenauer Foundation, archived from the original on February 4, 2019 ; accessed on February 4, 2019 . (Biographical article about Thedieck on the website of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, of which Thedieck was co-chair from 1964 to 1968. The 'shot' first two sentences of the section “Youth and Education” should apparently read: “Franz Josef Bernhard Thedieck came in Hagen in Westphalia as the son of the district judge Josef Thedieck and his wife Johanna zur Welt (birth and baptism certificates). “Apparently due to a formatting error, fragments from the passage just quoted repeat themselves over around a third of the article in a slightly 'shifted' form. )
  • Author: Thedieck, Franz. In: "The Cabinet Protocols of the Federal Government" online. Federal Archives , accessed on February 4, 2019 . (a brief biographical note on Thedieck)
  • Untitled: Franz Thedieck. In: Munzinger Online / People - International Biographical Archive. Munzinger Archive, January 8, 1996, accessed on February 3, 2019 (only partially accessible free of charge). (cited as "Munzinger / IBA").

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The middle names as well as date and place of birth according to Thedieck, Franz. Retrieved on February 4, 2019 . , where the names of Thedieck's parents are based on birth and baptism certificates, so that the information of interest here may also have been determined on the basis of the documents mentioned.
  2. ↑ The dates of birth and death are undisputed in the literature cited.
  3. ↑ Denise Lindsay ( . Thedieck, Franz Accessed on February 4, 2019 . ) Calls - citing "birth and baptism certificate" - the names of both parents. She describes the official rank of Thedieck senior before moving to Cologne as "district judge"; Munzinger / IBA ( . Franz Thedieck Accessed on February 4, 2019 . ) And handle ( 99 heads write, p 309) "Secret [r] Judicial Council"; Klee ( Personenlexikon , p. 621) only writes “Justizrat”.
  4. ↑ See:
    • Munzinger / IBA ( . Franz Thedieck Accessed on February 4, 2019 . ) "Franz Thedieck [...] but grew up in the Rhineland on." (Repaid emphasis)
    and
    • Lindsay ( . Thedieck, Franz Accessed on February 4, 2019 . ): "As a child he moved with his family to Cologne."
  5. ↑ See:
    • Munzinger / IBA ( . Franz Thedieck Accessed on February 4, 2019 . ): "Josef Thedieck was from 1903 to 1938 Landgerichtsdirektor in Cologne"
    • Henkels, 99 heads , p. 308: "in Cologne from 1903 to 1938 district court director"
    and
    • - undated - Lindsay ( . Thedieck, Franz Accessed on February 4, 2019 . ): "Cologne, where his father had a job as a district court director".
  6. ↑ See:
    • Henkels, 99 Köpf , p. 308: "The trainee lawyers Konrad Adenauer and Hans Globke passed through his [Thedieck senior] hands during their training."
    and
    • - only to Adenauer - Munzinger / IBA ( Franz Thedieck. Retrieved on February 4, 2019 . "Konrad Adenauer had gone as a law clerk in his training through his hands.")
  7. ↑
    Colored green in the west: Cologne's     Lindenthal     district ; whose - eponymous - easternmost district Lindenthal, which borders on the inner city district districts Neustadt-Nord- and Neustadt-Süd.

    The Apostelgymnasium , now located in Cologne-Lindenthal, does not seem to be meant, because it was located in Cologne's old town until 1939 ( city ​​center district ; see article " Cologne # Stadtgliederung "; between Lindenthal and the old town are the districts of Neustadt-Nord and Neustadt) -South).

  8. ↑ Thedieck, Franz. Retrieved on February 4, 2019 . (in each case without reference to the source).
  9. ^ Bruno Kartheuser: Subversion nazie et action secrète. P. 28 , accessed on February 1, 2019 . : "Bureau de contre-espionnage (defense) pour combattre le séparatisme rhénan" (emphasis added).
    See the terminology: From 1920 to 1944 the German military intelligence service was called "Abwehr"; but also the foreign ministry (foreign office) had a "defense department"; The Association for Germanness Abroad also competed with the military intelligence service for competencies (see Defense (intelligence service) #Abwehr AA ).
    The reading of "defense" as "secret service" is further supported by two other circumstances:
    1. When Konrad Adenauer and Thedieck had clashed in the 1920s because of Thedieck's work, Adenauer is said to have referred to Thedieck as "Spy Severings" (Henkels, 99 heads , p. 308). ( Carl Severing , who was one of the supporters of World War I in the SPD , was the Prussian Minister of the Interior from 1920 to 1926 and from 1930 to 1932. Said "defense office" was located at his ministry.)
    2. Adenauer's grudge subsided later : As Federal Chancellor, he is said to have "in December 1949 [apparently on the 5th of the month] [...] in a personal conversation with Thedieck [] to take over the management of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which is currently being set up" (Creuzberger, Kampf , P. 69 at footnote 110) - this offer would probably not have been made without Thedieck's previous community service experience. According to his own account, Thedieck preferred the office of State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for all-German issues .
    As evidence of an offer from Adenauer to Thedieck, Creuzberger
    • on the one hand Thedieck himself, who dated Adenauer's offer to January 1950 - a little later: “At the beginning of 1950 there was a remarkable interlude [in the dispute over Thedieck's appointment as State Secretary in the BMG ]. Chancellor Adenauer asked me to come over and tried to persuade me to take over the office of President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution . [...]. When I left the Chancellor's room, I met the then Federal Minister of the Interior, Dr. Heinemann , [...]. "(Thedieck, Talks , p. 332 [there also Thedieck's rejection of Adenauer's offer])
    and
    • On the other hand, a letter from the Federal Minister for All-German Issues, Jakob Kaiser , to Adenauer, dated December 8, 1949, which does not explicitly deal with the protection of the constitution, but together with Thedieck's reference to Heinemann allows a dating of the conversation between Adenauer and Thedieck and which said it : “I very much regret, Mr. Chancellor, that you have unfortunately still not been able to make up your mind, Mr. Thedieck, to place the trust you deserve [ie: to approve his appointment as State Secretary]. I regret even more vividly that you - as I learned from a conversation with Dr. Heinemann had to take - believed that they could dispose of him [Thedieck] in some other way without telling me a word about it. ”(Quoted from Kostkorst, Kaiser , p. 98)
    (Adenauer himself also speaks in his answer from the next day to Kaiser of a recent "meeting that I [Adenauer] had with Mr. Thedieck" (letter) No. 153 , in: Rudolf Morsey / Hans-Peter Schwarz [ed.] , Adenauer. Briefe 1959-1951 edited by Hans Peter Mensing [= Adenauer. Rhöndorfer Edition. Volume 1.3], Siedler: Berlin, 1985, pp. 143-145 [144]. In the editorial notes of Mensing [p. 467, footnote 9] it says [with reference to archive documents: StBKAH04.01] that Heinemann was at Adenauer's “to Thedieck” on December 5, 1949 at 11:30 am.)
  10. ↑ See also:
    • Schärer, Annexationspolitik , p. 32 at footnotes 39 and 40: Thedieck had already “ before he was appointed 'Commissioner of the Prussian Government for Eupen-Malmedy' in 1931, [...] for the 'Prussian defense against separatism in the Rhineland'” worked.
    such as
    • Bruno Kartheuser: Subversion nazie et action secrète. P. 28 , accessed on February 1, 2019 . : “The government councilor Franz Thedieck for chargé d'orchestrer toutes les initiatives allemandes visant à œuvrer pour le retour des Cantons de l'Est à l'Allemagne. Ce fonctionnaire qui, de 1923 à 1930 , avait dirigé le Bureau de contre-espionnage (defense) pour combattre le séparatisme rhénan, […]. "(Emphasis added)
  11. ↑ See also:
    • Klee, Personenlexikon , p. 621: "1931 Government Council in Cologne"
    and
    • Bruno Kartheuser: Subversion nazie et action secrète. P. 28 , accessed on February 1, 2019 . : “Devint en 1931 government councilor auprès du gouvernement de Cologne. Il fut l'Adresse centrale pour tout ce qui avait trait aux intérêts allemands dans les Cantons de l'Est et il coopérait - selon son propre aveu - 'étroitement avec les divers services et les diverses personnalités du NSDAP'. "
  12. ↑ Schärer, Annexionspolitik , p. 32 before footnote 39: "1931 as 'Commissioner of the Prussian Government for Eupen-Malmedy'".
  13. ↑ According to Fahlbusch, an - apparently more detailed - excerpt from the dossier is available from Thomas Müller, Außenarbeit im Westen, turn of the year 1936/37 , in: Geschichte im Westen . 2003, pp. 82-105.
  14. ↑ Klee, Personenlexikon , p. 621 (with reference to Hilberg): “1941-1943 Oberkriegsverwaltungsrat and general advisor in the office of the Belgian military commander at the time of the persecution of the Jews”.
  15. ↑ There with reference to a decision of the Schleswig Higher Regional Court of March 8, 1977, in: Serge Klarsfeld / Maxime Steinberg, Die Finallösung der Judenfrage in Belgium , Beate-Klarsfeld-Foundation: New York / Paris, 1980, 116 - 181 ( 139 ) .
  16. ↑ "The [This letter and other circumstances] were from the beginning [...] an unmistakable sign that a 'work assignment', [...], was never intended." (Schleswig Higher Regional Court at the point just mentioned ). - Thedieck was only involved in these criminal proceedings as a witness and not as a defendant.
  17. ^ The Thedieck estate is in the Federal Archives Microfilm No. 105, 1946 - 1951, with personal details Th. And statements in the trial against the head of the military administration in Brussels, Eggert Reeder , SS-Gruppenführer
  18. ↑ Klee, Personenlexikon , p. 621 (with reference to Munzinger).
  19. ↑ Klee, Personenlexikon , p. 621 (without specifying the duration of membership in the Center Party and without specifying the end of the term of office at the Adenauer Foundation).
  20. ↑ About the years 1917 - 1930: Thedieck undermines the Belgian sovereignty in East Belgium on the part of the German state . The book has also been published in French and Dutch.
personal data
SURNAME Thedieck, Franz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thedieck, Franz Josef Bernhard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (CDU)
DATE OF BIRTH September 26, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Hagen
DATE OF DEATH November 20, 1995
Place of death Bonn