Hans-Heinrich Herwarth von Bittenfeld

Hans-Heinrich Herwarth von Bittenfeld (born July 14, 1904 in Berlin , † August 21, 1999 in Küps ) was a German civil servant and diplomat .

Hans-Heinrich Herwarth von Bittenfeld (left)

Life

As the son of Hans-Richard Herwarth von Bittenfeld and his wife born. Ilse von Tiedemann (daughter of Heinrich von Tiedemann-Seeheim ) he attended a grammar school in Berlin, then he took a job from 1922 to 1924 at the locomotive factory Orenstein & Koppel and the Deutsche Erdöl-AG . He then studied law and economics at the universities of Berlin , Breslau and Munich .

In 1926 he began his legal preparatory service in Munich . In May 1927 he took up service in the Foreign Office in Berlin. He passed the diplomatic-consular final exam in December 1929. In 1930 he was assigned to the German embassy in Paris .

From 1931 to 1939 he was attaché and legation secretary (second secretary) in the German embassy in Moscow . During this time he met the US diplomats George F. Kennan , Charles E. Bohlen and Charles W. Thayer , who were based in Moscow . Von Herwarth was able to build on these relationships after 1945, as Thayer was appointed head of the Office of Strategic Services in Vienna in 1945. Herwarth also had close contact in Moscow with the British diplomat Fitzroy Maclean , who was an agent of MI 6 . After the conclusion of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact , he passed the secret additional protocol of the pact to the US diplomats, which regulates the division of Poland in the event of war. In the fall of 1940, Bittenfeld, alias " Johnny ", also revealed the Wehrmacht's secret plans to attack the Soviet Union against the Allies and thus made some of the most decisive contributions to the sabotage of the National Socialist war efforts, which was widespread among German top officials and military.

At the beginning of the Second World War , Herwarth was drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1939 . Because of a Jewish grandmother (Julia von Herwarth née Haber), his career prospects as a “ second degree Jewish half- breed ” were limited, but during the war Hitler exempted him from applying the Nuremberg Laws . He worked within the OKW Office in the Foreign / Defense Department in Abwehr II ( diversion , ethnic decomposition). According to his experience in the Soviet Union, he was in the project of the Eastern Troops of the Army High Command used the framework at a conference - was the beginning of March marked 1943 - where Herwarth participants was. He was also a participant in a meeting in the East Ministry on December 18, 1942, during which the future policy of the extermination of the Jews in the conquered eastern areas was discussed with the representatives of the Reich Security Main Office .

Within the Army Group South he took part in the recruitment of defected Soviet soldiers . He was employed as a political officer with General of the Cavalry Ernst-August Köstring , the commander of the eastern troops, and represented the Wehrmacht in the establishment of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia ( Komitet Osvobozhdyeniya Narodov Rossii , KONR). Simpson writes about Herwarth's activities in 1944:

“Thayer also knew that Herwarth had had something to do with fighting partisans in 1944 with defector battalions, because he had admitted it himself. In addition, as head of the OSS, Thayer had to be aware that the actions had resulted in mass shootings of thousands of civilian hostages, the looting of villages and other crimes. Nevertheless, Thayer ensured that Herwarth was quickly released from the Wehrmacht, saved him from being an American prisoner of war and released him from American custody. Herwarth's activities during the war were not even briefly examined, which was usually the case even with NCOs. "

After the official surrender, Herwarth surrendered to the US agencies in Austria. There he was tracked down by Thayer. Herwarth writes about this reunion of the old friend from Moscow:

“I stayed with Charlie for about nine weeks. He asked me to write down my experiences with the Soviet Union during the war and, above all, to describe the activities of the volunteer organizations [units from members of German-occupied or allied countries deployed in the German army and especially in the Waffen-SS]. I accompanied Charlie every day to his office in the old St. Peter monastery [...] At the end of the summer I was assigned to the American group for historical research at Camp King [...] "

In 1945 he took up employment as a senior government councilor , was appointed government director in 1946 and from 1949 worked as a ministerial advisor in the Bavarian State Chancellery . Then he was brought to the Federal Chancellery in Bonn as head of the working group for the protocol. From the outset it was Erica Pappritz , which since 1930 professional to his friends counted. In 1950 he was appointed ministerial director. From 1951 to 1955 he was chief of protocol in the Foreign Office, from December 1952 as envoy. From 1955 to 1961 he was Ambassador to the United Kingdom . From 1961 to 1965 he was a permanent state secretary and head of the office of the Federal President . In this function he had spoken out internally against a second term in 1964 because of Heinrich Lübke's state of health . From 1965 to 1969 he was ambassador to Italy and president of the Goethe Institute for the Care of German Language and Culture Abroad. V. Munich from 1971 to 1977.

Herwarth's first wife was the German ski racer Annemarie Herwarth von Bittenfeld-Honigmann . Since 1936 he had a marriage with Elisabeth von Redwitz, from which the daughter Alexandra emerged.

Honors

Herwarth was awarded, among other things, the Great Federal Cross of Merit with Star and Shoulder Ribbon and the Grand Cross Victoria Order . In 1962 he received the Great Silver Decoration on Ribbon for Services to the Republic of Austria . Since 1989 he was an academic honorary citizen of the University of Augsburg . He was also the bearer of the Icelandic Order of the Hawks (Commander with Star), which was awarded to him on January 29, 1955.

Works

• Between Hitler and Stalin. Experienced contemporary history 1931–1945 . Propylaea, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-549-07627-4 .
• From Adenauer to Brandt. Memories . Propylaea, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-549-07403-4 .

literature

• Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 2: Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: G – K. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2005, ISBN 3-506-71841-X .
• Christopher Simpson: The American Boomerang. Nazi war criminals paid by the USA. Ueberreuter, Vienna 1988, ISBN 3-8000-3277-5 , p. 113 ( Ueberreuter non-fiction book ).
• Charles Thayer: Bears in the Caviar. JB Lippincott, Philadelphia PA et al. 1951, p. 28 ff.
• Charles Thayer: Hands Across the Caviar. JB Lippincott, Philadelphia PA 1952, pp. 183-200.
• Michael Wildt : Generation of the Unconditional. The leadership corps of the Reich Security Main Office Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-930908-87-5 , p. 677.
• 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 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Hans-Heinrich Herwarth von Bittenfeld in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Background of Treason by William EW Gowen (English)
2. ^ Friedrich Georg: Friedrich Georg - Treason on the Eastern Front . ( archive.org [accessed February 26, 2018]).
3. ^ Steffen R. Kathe: cultural policy at any price. The history of the Goethe-Institut . Martin Meidenbauer, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-89975-047-0 , p. 126 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
4. ↑ Michael Wildt: Generation of the Unconditional. The leadership corps of the Reich Security Main Office. Hamburg 2003, p. 677.
5. ↑ Christopher Simpson: The American Boomerang. Nazi war criminals paid by the USA. Vienna 1988, p. 113.
6. ↑ Herwart von Bittenfeld: Between Hitler and Stalin , 1982.
7. ↑ Hans von Herwarth: From Adenauer to Brandt. Memories. , Propylaen, Berlin / Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-549-07403-4 , here p. 279 ff.
8. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)
9. ↑ Database query on the website of the President of Iceland , accessed on July 6, 2020.