Friedrich Fetzer

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Friedrich "Fritz" Fetzer (born September 17, 1896 in Lindau in Lake Constance , † January 23, 1985 ) was the ministerial director in the German Reich and in 1945 significantly saved Lindau from destruction.

Life

Friedrich Fetzer was born as the son of a civil servant in Lindau. He grew up on the Hinteren Insel in Lindau and went to the Latin school there. Then he attended the boarding school of Kloster Neuburg. At the First World War Fetzer participated as a volunteer in part and was severely wounded. After the First World War, he first studied chemistry, but then law at the University of Munich .

Friedrich Fetzer traveled the world after graduating, especially Persia and Mexico . He was interested in the local oil deposits and oil production . Many relationships developed abroad through the travels. At the end of the 1920s, Friedrich Fetzer first became an expert in supplying oil to the German Navy , and later became a Ministerial Councilor in the Navy Ministry and from then on worked closely with Erich Raeder .

Food supply in Switzerland in the Second World War

Friedrich Fetzer conducted negotiations with the Swiss Lieutenant Colonel Iselin about the food supply in Switzerland during the Second World War . Switzerland bought four cargo ships for this (plus seven from private investors). The negotiated arrangement stipulated that these ships, as soon as they entered European waters from the Atlantic , first radioed the British Navy and reported their position; this message went to Fritz Fetzer in Berlin via the Swiss embassy in London and the Foreign Office in Bern. Usually a German warship was provided as escort. The destinations of the Swiss cargo ships were Rotterdam and Marseille .

During a business trip, Friedrich Fetzer met Carl Jakob Burckhardt , with whom he met repeatedly on business. When Burckhardt was the International Representative of the International Red Cross of England, Fetzer established contacts with British political and business representatives. On July 8, 1942, rapprochement between England and the German Reich was discussed between the two; Fetzer forwarded the minutes of the conversation about State Secretary Ernst von Weizsäcker to his head of office Hermann Göring . Adolf Hitler forbade Fetzer from further negotiations with Burckhardt, as he viewed these talks as treason . From then on, Fetzer was monitored by the Gestapo and he was prohibited from further trips abroad. In 1942 Fetzer voluntarily resigned from his position as Ministerialrat in the Navy and returned to Lindau.

Rescue of Lindau in World War II

Towards the end of the Second World War, Lindau was repeatedly targeted by Allied air raids, as Lindau was an important traffic junction for the so-called Alpine fortress . The freight yard in Reutin was particularly affected . As a precaution, ships in the port of Lindau were brought to neighboring, neutral Switzerland at night in order to avoid destruction . Furthermore, the injured increased in the Lindau hotels, the Luitpold barracks and in the Reutin elementary school, which were provisionally converted into hospitals , mainly soldiers, but also civilians from neighboring Friedrichshafen . Fetzer started an initiative to have Lindau declared a Red Cross city due to the many injured people and refugees housed there and thus to protect the city from attacks. Since he was unable to contact Carl Jakob Burckhardt, who has meanwhile been appointed President of the International Red Cross, from Lindau, he and the hotelier Jörg Rhomberg set off for Kißlegg , where the Swiss Minister for Protecting Power Matters Peter Anton Feldscher , who had been expelled from Berlin, resided. At the end of April 1945, Feldscher announced that Lindau would be declared an "International Red Cross City" as soon as the city was free of military facilities and all larger buildings were marked with a visible Red Cross symbol. This was confirmed by the Swiss consul in Bregenz, Carl Bitz , and Burckhardt named Lindau an "International Red Cross City". On April 30, 1945, the city was captured by the French army without attack. However, Bregenz was shelled by the French from Lindau's side.

"Dr. Fetzer deserves [...] the respect and protection of the democratic states in every respect "

- Quote from the letter of protection of the Swiss consul Bitz in Bregenz, April 21, 1945

After the war, Friedrich Fetzer worked as a ministerial director and head of department at the Federal Ministry of Economics in Bonn and at the OECD in Paris .

In 1959 he became a member of the supervisory board of Agip Germany .

Friedrich Fetzer married Countess Anne-Renee Quadt zu Wykradt-Isny von Schloss Moos in 1933 (born September 19, 1896 in St. Colomba / Italy; † 1976 in Lindau) and lived with her at Moos Castle in Lindau.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. Karl Bachmann: The background to the rescue of the city of Lindau at the end of the Second World War in 1945. In: Neujahrsblatt 29 of the Lindau Museum Association.