Giselher Savoy cabbage

Giselher Wirsing (born April 15, 1907 in Schweinfurt , † September 23, 1975 in Stuttgart ) was a German economist, journalist and author during the National Socialist era and in the Bonn Republic .

Life

Origin and studies

Max Emanuel Wirsing was the son of Friedrich Wirsing and Pauline, b. Karus and was born into a wealthy Schweinfurt family, he had an older sister. During his studies at the universities in Munich , Königsberg , Riga , Berlin and Vienna , he changed his name to Giselher and graduated from the University of Heidelberg in 1929 with a degree in economics . He was initially a university assistant. In 1931 he was promoted to Dr. rer. pole. PhD.

During his studies, Wirsing was involved in the German guild .

Travels through Central and Eastern Europe, political orientation

From 1928 onwards, Wirsing traveled to Central and Eastern Europe and published the knowledge he gained there in the young conservative magazine Die Tat . He joined the circle of the National Socialists and brothers Gregor and Otto Strasser .

In 1932 his first book Zwischeneuropa und die deutsche Zukunft was published ; In 1933 he published his work Germany in world politics . At the same time he wrote further essays for the deed , the direction of which he determined with Hans Zehrer , Ferdinand Friedrich Zimmermann and Ernst Wilhelm Eschmann , in an explicitly anti-democratic-anti-parliamentary attitude, propagating a class -authoritarian- ruled Greater Germany . In September 1933 he became editor of the paper and wrote programmatically on the occasion:

" In the future, in addition to summarizing front-line reports on the National Socialist reconstruction work, the deed will endeavor to clarify all German life issues that concern our people today."

In October 1933, at the suggestion of Heinrich Himmler, he was appointed head of the politics department at Münchner Neuesten Nachrichten . In 1934 he became editor-in-chief there.

Staff of the SD

Wirsing became an SS candidate that same year and worked as an informant for the SD . On November 1, 1938, he was promoted to Hauptsturmführer of the SS and chief editor of the Münchner Neuesten Nachrichten . He still acted as editor of the magazine Die Tat , which since 1939 under the title Das XX. Century was continued and in East Asia as XX. Century appeared, a sheet of the AA Propaganda Department . He also worked as an advisor to the cultural policy department of the Foreign Office, for which he wrote anti-Bolshevik language regulations until the end of the war .

At times, Savoy was for the Institute for Study of the Jewish Question of Alfred Rosenberg operates at its opening on March 27, 1941 in Frankfurt, he as a speaker on the topic The Jewish question in the Middle East occurred. In it he said:

"It is clear that Judaism in general, and the Zionist organization in particular, played an important role in preparing for war."

USA trip and The immeasurable continent

As early as 1930, Wirsing traveled extensively through the USA on a scholarship from the American / German Abraham Lincoln Foundation, which is part of the Rockefeller Foundation . He made another trip in 1938.

He published his views on the government and culture of the United States in his 1942 book The Massive Continent . In his opinion, the American system of government manipulated by Jewish influence was contrasted with a “ new world order ” in the form of a hegemonic power Europe dominated by Germany . The assessment and judgment of the Anglo-American world described in his book found an impressed reader in Joseph Goebbels . On March 12, 1942, he noted in his diary:

“In the evenings I find a few hours to read the new book by Wirsing, 'The immeasurable continent'. Savoy is here a representation of American life, economy, culture, and politics. The material he brings together is truly staggering. Roosevelt is one of the most serious pests of modern culture and civilization. If we did not succeed in finally defeating the enemy side, which is made up of Bolshevism, plutocracy and lack of culture, then the world would be approaching darkest darkness. "

Cooperation with the SD abroad, boss at Signal

In 1940 Wirsing joined the NSDAP and during the French campaign worked as an advisor to Walter Schellenberg , the head of Office Group IV E (Defense) and later head of Office VI (SD-Foreign) of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA).

From March 26th to 28th, 1941, Wirsing took part in the founding of the anti-Semitic Institute for Research on the Jewish Question , part of Alfred Rosenberg's planned high school of the NSDAP , and gave a keynote presentation there: The Jewish question in the Middle East.

In 1943 he became editor-in-chief, in 1945 editor-in-chief of the Auslandsillustrierten Signal , a publication of the High Command of the Wehrmacht , which was published in several languages . a. as a propaganda officer to the troops in Russia. After the German defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad , Wirsing became the defining personality at Signal . There was almost no issue without an editorial from him. As early as 1938, a recommendation in a personnel report characterized him as follows: "In the course of the cooperation with the SD, Hauptsturmführer Wirsing has proven to be a willing, hardworking and extremely valuable employee." This assessment led to his promotion to SS-Sturmbannführer . He later acted as a special leader in a propaganda company on the Eastern Front. He propagated National Socialist European plans in March 1943 in Signal .

For the Foreign Office he also acted as a consultant for anti-Bolshevik language regulations, so the representation of AA interests in the magazine bei Wirsing was in the best of hands. As a result, he propagated the Eastern War as a campaign against “the utterly evil and abysmal”.

Until 1944, Wirsing wrote for a German Information Center (also German Information Service ) in Berlin's Rauchstrasse. This was an SS propaganda institute specializing in translations into all European languages, which was supposed to spread the vision of an anti-Anglo-Saxon SS Europe . The DNB has a total of around 1080 publications from this office.

Egmont reports

In September 1944, Walter Schellenberg commissioned Wirsing, an internationally experienced journalist who also had no illusions about Germany's political and military defeat, to prepare reports that summarize the situation reports of the SD espionage network that came together in Office VI of the RSHA and as a reading template should serve. For this purpose, a central evaluation center was set up in Office VI a under the direction of Dr. Schindowsky, who supplied the Savoy daily with the situation reports. Wirsing used it to produce reports about 14 to 16 pages in length about every three weeks. In order to preserve Wirsing's anonymity, he and Schellenberg agreed on the name Egmont Reports . Out of seven copies of the report, one each went to Hermann Fegelein (for forwarding to Hitler), Heinrich Himmler, Arthur Seyß-Inquart , Walther Hewel , the representative of the Reich Foreign Minister to the Fuehrer, and probably one to Joseph Goebbels . Schellenberg and Wirsing kept one copy each. In the period from October 1944 to March 1945, Wirsing produced 13 Egmont reports .

Schellenberg assumed that after July 20, 1944, only the SS would be available as a force capable of action and that only Heinrich Himmler would be considered as a possible successor to Hitler . The ground therefore had to be prepared for future contacts and negotiations with the Western Allies. The Egmont reports were intended to convince Himmler of this inevitability and further weaken his loyalty to Hitler. Finally, Schellenberg suggested to Himmler that Hitler should be induced to partially surrender power and partially surrender in the West. Since Himmler could not assert himself against Hitler with this proposal, Schellenberg stopped the production of further reports as pointless in March 1945.

Post-war Germany

In June 1945 Wirsing was taken prisoner of war and soon worked there as an information collector for the US secret service, on whose behalf he undertook a study trip through the American zone in 1946, but remained officially interned. Wirsing was interrogated on various occasions, for example in December 1947 by Robert Kempner . In the internment camp, he advocated joining the US zone of occupation as the 49th state to the USA.

The ruling chamber at the Garmisch regional court classified him as a follower as part of the denazification in 1948 and fined him 2000 Reichsmarks, which was reduced to 500 Reichsmarks in the appeals court . The magazine Der Spiegel quoted him in 1967 as saying that in 1943 he demanded the "violent elimination of the Jewish element" and interpreted that he had justified the "expediency of Auschwitz ". Wirsing threatened SPIEGEL with a lawsuit, but did not act on the threat.

In 1948, Wirsing was a co-founder of the evangelical-conservative weekly newspaper Christ und Welt , an official newspaper of the Evangelical Church from 1949 , of which he became editor-in-chief in 1954 (former President of the EKD Synod: Gustav Heinemann ) and remained until 1970. He succeeded in developing it into the weekly newspaper with the highest circulation in the Federal Republic (until 1963). The Social Democratic press protested against Wirsing's appointment to the leadership of Christ and the World . Herbert Wehner and Willy Brandt made sure that this "barrage" was stopped.

In Christ und Welt , Wirsing published an article on April 16, 1959 about "a second Albert Schweitzer " in the village of Li Jubu in the border area of Sudan , Congo and French Equatorial Africa . In doing so, he unintentionally exposed Horst Schumann , who was hiding there and who, as a doctor, played a key role in the T4 campaign , the killing of sick and disabled people during the Nazi era, and who had been wanted by the Frankfurt am Main public prosecutor for years. Wirsing ensured that Armin Mohler could write for the weekly newspaper Christ und Welt from 1960 to 1964 and earn a living from it. When it was discussed whether a memorial should be set up in the house of the Wannsee Conference , Wirsing spoke out in an article in Christ und Welt against it and described such a memorial as a “monument of shame”. He asked himself what was still to be researched about National Socialism. In addition, it is wrong to "provide the way of the Germans into the future with further dark places of worship". The initiative of Joseph Wulf and others was delayed for many years.

family

Giselher Wirsing had two daughters from his first marriage to Ellen Rösler (one of them is the journalist Sibylle Wirsing ). Ellen Rösler was later married to Edwin Erich Dwinger . Wirsing was married to the publicist Gisela Bonn , who had previously been married to the Moscow correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung , Hermann Pörzgen . Bonn and Wirsing wrote some books together.

Publications

As an author

• Between Europe and the German future. 1932
• Germany in world politics. 1933
• Heads of world politics. Knorr & Hirth, Munich 1934
• The Kingdom of South Slavia (other employees: Gerhard Gesemann, Egon Heymann, Josef März, Friedrich Wilhelm von Oertzen , Alois Schmaus, Hans Schwab, France Stele). Foreword by Karl Haushofer . Robert Noske, Leipzig 1935
• English, Jews, Arabs in Palestine. 1938, 1939 & 5th redesigned. Edition 1942
• Deutsche Informationsstelle (Hrsg.): A hundred families rule the Empire (= England without a mask. No. 10). Without publisher, Berlin 1940.
  • Cent familles dominent l'empire britannique. Maison Internationelle d'Edition, Bruxelles 1940 published his view of government and culture in his 1942 book "The Massive Continent" (French)
  • 100 familier behersker imperiet. Herolden Forlag 1941 (Norwegian).
• The immeasurable continent. Roosevelt's struggle for world domination , Diederichs, Jena 1942
  • In Flemish: De ontwikkeling van het Amerikaansche imperialisme Brussels 1942 (transl. JS Steenwijk)
• The age of Icarus. Of the law and limits of our century. 1944
• The politics of the oil stain. Soviet imperialism in World War II. German publishing house, 1944 (under the pseudonym Vindex)
• Step out of nowhere. Perspectives at the end of the revolutions. 1951
• Social history of the industrial world of work, its forms of crisis and attempts at design (together with Ernst Michel), 1953
• The return of the mondo-mogo. Africa of tomorrow. 1954
• The avalanche of people. Population growth as a global political problem. Series: Questions at the time 3. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1956
• India, Asia's dangerous years. 1968, exp. Eds. 1972 & 1982
  • in English: The Indian Experiment. Key to Asia's Future. Orient Longman, New Delhi 1972
• State and economy in communism from the point of view of its 'heretics', with special reference to Milovan Djilas. In: Walter Raymond Foundation (ed.): Property, Economy, Progress. On the regulatory function of private productive property. Jakob Hegner, Cologne 1970
• The avoidable downfall. The challenge to people and powers. 1975
• India and the subcontinent. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan (with Gisela Bonn), 1984

As editor

• The war 1939/41 in maps (collaboration: Albrecht Haushofer , Wolfgang Höpker, Fritz Meurer, Horst Michael), Knorr & Hirth, Munich 1940, 2nd edition 1942 (reprint Melchior Historischer Verlag 2008)
• Indo Asia (on behalf of the Indo- German Society), UT: Quarterly issues for politics, culture and economy of India. Since January 1961: born 1960 - born 1968. Self-published by the company
• (with Ernst Wilhelm Eschmann ): The 20th century. Monthly. Diederichs, Jena.

literature

• Norbert Frei , Johannes Schmitz: Journalism in the Third Reich. 3rd revised edition. Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-45516-6 , p. 173 ff. ( Beck'sche series 376).
• Astrid Freyeisen: Shanghai and the politics of the third Reich. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2000, ISBN 3-8260-1690-4 (at the same time: Würzburg, Univ., Diss., 1998), (often about Wirsing and Klaus Mehnert , their Nazi cooperation in East Asia).
• Rainer Jedlitschka: Words as actions . In: context weekly newspaper. Issue 434, July 24, 2019, pre-publication of a chapter from the 10th volume of the book series perpetrators, helpers, free riders
• Otto Köhler : Weird Publicists. The repressed past of the media makers. Droemer Knaur, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-426-80071-3 ( Knaur 80071 Politics and Contemporary History ).
• Dagmar Pöpping : Giselher Wirsing's "Zwischeneuropa". A German federation model between East and West, in: Reinhard Blomert et al. (Ed.): Heidelberger Sozial- und Staatswissenschaften. The Institute for Social and Political Sciences between 1918 and 1958. Marburg 1997, pp. 349–369.
• Rainer Rutz: "Signal". A German illustrated abroad as a propaganda instrument in World War II. Klartext, Essen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89861-720-8 , (also: Diss.phil.Humboldt University Berlin 2005)
• Joseph Wulf , Léon Poliakov : The Third Reich and its “thinkers”. Arani, Berlin 1959 (frequent new editions, most recently: Ullstein, Frankfurt 1996, ISBN 3-548-33038-X (a chapter on savoy cabbage)).

Web links

• Literature by and about Giselher Wirsing in the catalog of the German National Library
• Raoul Löbbert on Giselher Wirsing in: Christ und Welt , Bonn, August 2012

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ingo Haar : Historians in National Socialism. German history and the "Volkstumkampf" in the east . 2nd Edition. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2002, ISBN 3-525-35942-X , p. 80 .
2. ↑ Janich Oliver: The United States of Europe. ( books.google.ch ).
3. ↑ printed in: Welt-Kampf. Organ of the institute, Hoheneichen-Verlag, No. 1–2, April – September 1941, pp. 22–29. This edition reported on all contributions to the conference.
4. ↑ We, the Europeans. March 2, 1943; lectures at Eckart Conze u. a. The institution. Karl Blessing, Munich 2010
5. ^ Johannes Schmitz, Norbert Frei: Journalism in the Third Reich . Beck, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-406-33131-9 , pp. 179 .
6. ↑ : Der SPIEGEL reported ... In: Der Spiegel . No. 20 , 1967 ( online - May 8, 1967 ).
7. ↑ Klaus Harpprecht : In the Chancellery. Diary of the years with Willy Brandt. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2000, ISBN 3-498-02956-8 , p. 504 (there also the word about drum fire).
8. ↑ Blurb: “This book has an intellectual connection with the 'end of capitalism' by Ferdinand Fried , whose demand for a European reorganization it actually only underpins ... W. creates a three-dimensional picture of that intermediate Europe that stretches from the Gulf of Finland to the Black Sea, “that is, the targeted area of ​​Nazi rule.
9. ↑ With the chapters leadership: Hitler, Mussolini and others; Military and state (including Sadao Araki , Chiang Kaishek , Ibn Saud ); Democracy and Politics: Roosevelt, Edvard Beneš , André Tardieu and others; Supranational High Finance ( JP Morgan ); Diplomacy (including Maxim Maximowitsch Litwinow , William Tyrrell, 1st Baron Tyrrell , Nicolae Titulescu)
10. ↑ Frequent editions. Also published in English. On 10 pages, Wirsing expresses his admiration for Mohammed Amin al-Husseini ; engl. Fass. Pp. 141–151.
11. ↑ title known in several languages; with an excursus against Jews
12. ↑ further contributors: Theodor Eschenburg ; Wolfgang Förster; Erich W. Streissler ; Theodor Mulder; Friedrich Wilhelm Christians  ; W. Herion; Heinz Markmann; Disc contributions: Arnold Gehlen ; Hanns-Martin Schleyer et al. With these co-authors, W. could hope to be recognized again and to be forgotten as a top Nazi propagandist
13. ↑ Since April 1939. Articles GW documented: 3rd volume, issue 2, May 1941, title: The start of the great decision. / 1st year 1939, volume 2. Focus issue: Arabia. Attack on Europe. The awakening of Arabia. Also mentioned here: 31st year of "Tat" .- The Zs. Was the successor to "Die Tat" and existed until 1944. Other employees. were z. B. Heinrich Anacker , Hans Bethge , Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer (all 1939)
14. ↑ in detail on the English-language edition "XX. Century", and the related secret service activities of Wirsing and Mehnert in East Asia see lit. Astrid Freyeisen: Shanghai and the politics of the Third Reich. , readable online, p. 289ff. and more often