Heinrich Böx

Heinrich Böx (born June 21, 1905 in Aurich , Lower Saxony ; † September 4, 2004 ) was a German philologist, CDU politician and diplomat .

Life and work

Böx worked in the Hamburg school service from 1928 to 1939. In 1930 he earned his doctorate in German studies at the University of Hamburg. He was a soldier from 1939 to 1945. From 1945 to 1949 he worked as a journalist, for example in the German News Service , the German Press Service , and the Kölnische Rundschau .

Böx then joined the CDU. In May 1949, together with journalist Franz Hange, who was close to the CDU, he played a decisive role as an assistant to Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer on the capital issue (Bonn or Frankfurt am Main), as both Adenauer sent the fictitious report of alleged SPD victory certainty in favor of Frankfurt read in front of the CDU members of the Parliamentary Council and then achieved a majority for Bonn.

As a result, on September 25, 1949, under Adenauer, Böx was appointed permanent state secretary in the Federal Chancellery and first head of the office, later the Federal Government's press and information office. He gave this office to Paul Bourdin on November 10, 1949 . Böx remained the head of the foreign department and deputy head of the BPA. From 1951 to 1970 he worked in the Foreign Office, there a. a. from 1951 to 1956 as Consul First Class and from 1955 as Consul General in New York, in 1956 he became head of the Saar Department at the Foreign Office and in 1957 moved to the WEU as Deputy Secretary General . From 1961 to 1964 he was Consul General (Head of the Commercial Mission) in Helsinki, 1964 to 1966 Ambassador in Oslo , Norway, and from 1966 to 1970 as Envoy (Head of the Commercial Mission) in Warsaw , Poland.

In 1976 Böx was suspended as head of the CDU office for foreign relations on suspicion of espionage . From May 1976, the Federal Prosecutor's Office was investigating Böx and his long-time colleague Helge Berger for " intelligence work" for a "foreign power". Berger, who had worked as his secretary in the Warsaw Trade Mission until 1970 and with whom he maintained close personal contacts afterwards, was actually exposed as an agent of the Stasi and sentenced in 1977 to five years in prison by the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court. The proceedings against Böx were discontinued a little later.

In 1976 Böx became honorary president of the German-Togolese Society e. V. (DTG) based in Stuttgart.

He had two children with his wife Erica (née Wieck). Böx died at the age of 99.

See also

• Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany

Works

• Kleist's political views. Hamburg 1929, PhD thesis, Advent-Verlag, Hamburg 1930.

literature

• Thomas Ramge : The big political scandals. Another story of the Federal Republic of Germany. Düsseldorf 2004, p. 10ff., ISBN 978-3-593-37069-9 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sefton Delmer: The Germans and I . Nannen-Verlag, Hamburg 1962, p. 653–654 (English: Trail Sinister (1961) / Black Boomerang (1962) . Martin Secker & Warburg, London. Translated by Gerda v. Uslar (authorized translation)).
2. ^ Marc Jan Eumann: The German press service. News agency in the British zone 1945–1949 . The history of a media institution in post-war Germany (=  public and history . Volume 5 ). Herbert von Halem Verlag, Cologne 2011, ISBN 978-3-86962-055-8 , p. 72 (Dissertation, Institute for Journalism, Faculty of Cultural Studies, Technical University of Dortmund, 2011).
3. ↑ Gleich-lesen.de ( Memento of the original from February 16, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ bundesarchiv.de
5. ↑ The Berger case: small but powerful . In: Die Zeit , No. 23/1976