Hans-Jürgen Soehring

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Hans-Jürgen Soehring (also: Hans Jürgen Soehring ; * July 23, 1908 in Istanbul ; † October 9, 1960 in the Congo River , Democratic Republic of the Congo ) was a German lawyer, soldier, writer, translator and diplomat.

Life

Soehring was born as the son of diplomat Otto Soehring in what was then Constantinople and went to school in Turkey, the Netherlands , Switzerland and Denmark , among others . He studied law and political science in Leipzig , Berlin , Grenoble , Paris and London and passed his first state examination in 1932 and his second state examination in 1936 .

After a year of commercial activity, Soehring was a soldier from 1937 to 1945. During this time he was initially on the road as "legal advisor" to the Condor Legion in Spain, and later as a field judge in the Air Force with the rank of lieutenant colonel in occupied Paris. There he had a love affair with the French actress Arletty , whom he wanted to marry, but she refused. In 1943, Soehring was demoted to the rank of non-commissioned officer by his superiors and sent to the front, but was still able to maintain correspondence with Arletty. He later became an officer again and was again allowed to work for the Reich Court Martial, in which he was supposed to create a dossier on the Association of German Officers and the National Committee for Free Germany .

After the war Soehring was active as a writer and co-founder of Gruppe 47 . During this time he wrote, on the advice of Arletty, who kept in contact with him, the volume with 8 stories Cordelia published in 1948 and the novel Casaducale published in 1950 and translated Charles Lindbergh's Mein Flug über den Ozean ( The Spirit of St. Louis ).

In January 1954 Soehring joined the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany and worked as a consul in various African countries until 1960, when he was appointed Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the newly founded Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1960 . Soehring, now married to the German Anna Soehring and father of two sons, died there under unexplained circumstances during a family trip to the Congo River, when he wanted to refresh himself with his eldest son in the supposedly safe river; his body was never found. The friendship with Arletty lasted until his death. She visited the widow and sons in Bad Godesberg .

According to his own declaration in 1951, Soehring was never a member of the NSDAP . Klaus Harpprecht contradicts this . An article in the daily newspaper Die Welt dates Soehring's entry into the party in 1937.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Article Otto Soehring , in: Johannes Hürter (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871-1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 4: Bernd Isphording, Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: S Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-71843-3 , pp. 282-284 and volume 5, 2014, pp. 511 f.
  2. ↑ Klaus Harpprecht: A love in times of war . In: The time . No. 32, July 30, 2009, ISSN  0044-2070 , p. 78.
  3. ↑ Jörg von Uthmann: A love in France . In: The world . May 28, 2011
  4. ↑ Helmut Böttiger : A love story between the fronts , review, in: Büchermarkt , Deutschlandfunk, May 8, 2011
personal data
SURNAME Soehring, Hans-Jürgen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Soehring, Hans Jürgen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, soldier, writer, translator and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH July 23, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Istanbul
DATE OF DEATH October 9, 1960
Place of death Democratic Republic of Congo