Heinrich Rüdt von Collenberg

Heinrich Freiherr Rüdt von Collenberg-Bödigheim (born August 25, 1875 in Baden-Baden ; † October 26, 1954 there ) was a German lawyer and diplomat, most recently a German envoy in Mexico during the time of National Socialism .

Life

Rüdt von Collenberg came from the Rüdt von Collenberg family . He attended high school in Offenburg and Karlsruhe . After graduating from high school, he studied law in Geneva , Berlin and Heidelberg from 1893 to 1898 and in 1902 passed the 2nd state examination in the Baden judicial and administrative service. In the Grand Duchy of Baden he was appointed Chamberlain and Chamberlain . In 1903 he was taken over into the German Foreign Service . His first diplomatic posts abroad were Shanghai , Singapore , Bangkok and from 1913 Winnipeg in Canada. After the outbreak of World War I he became a soldier and had been employed in the military administration in occupied Romania since 1917 . After the end of the war he worked in Berlin and was consul general in Calcutta from 1921 to 1929 and then in Shanghai during the Weimar Republic .

Even during this time he had behaved “benevolently” towards the local section of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). After the handover of power to the National Socialists in 1933, he was recalled and, after the dismissal of politically unpopular diplomats, promoted to envoy in Mexico on August 26, 1933. On November 1, 1933, Rüdt von Collenberg joined the NSDAP. He worked closely with the "National Group Leader Mexico" of the NSDAP / AO Wilhelm Wirtz and his successor Ewald Bork, and he assumed the honorary chairmanship of the "German People's Community in Mexico" founded in 1935. In 1935 he brought the SA-Hauptsturmführer and press manager Mexico of the NSDAP / AO Arthur Dietrich to the embassy as a press attaché. This was used between 1936 and 1938 to support the Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil War. Dietrich received diplomatic status in Mexico on April 1, 1940.

After Mexico broke off diplomatic relations with the Greater German Reich on December 26, 1941, Rüdt von Collenberg returned to Germany on January 16, 1942 and was retired in the same year. Nothing is known about internment or denazification .

With his second wife Edith, geb. von Massenbach had Rüdt von Collenberg two children.

literature

• Klaus Volland: The Third Reich and Mexico: Studies on the Development of the German-Mexican Relationship 1933–1942 with Special Consideration of the Oil Policy , Frankfurt / M. : Lang, 1976
• Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 3: Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: L – R. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2008, ISBN 978-3-506-71842-6 .
• Hugh Gerald Campbell: The radical right in Mexico, 1929-1949 , University of California, 1968
• Wolfgang Kießling : Alemania libre in Mexico. A contribution to the history of anti-fascist exile (1941–1946) , Berlin, Ost: Akad.-Verlag, 1974

Individual evidence

1. ↑ quoted by Klaus Volland: The Third Reich and Mexico , p. 44
2. ↑ At Kießling, “Freiherr Rüdt von Collenberg-Bödigheim” is apostrophized as “SA leader”, but without any evidence. Wolfgang Kießling: Alemania libre in Mexico , Berlin, 1974 p. 277
3. ↑ Wolfgang Kießling: Alemania libre in Mexico , Berlin, 1974 p. 277
4. ↑ Lemma Arthur Dietrich in: Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871-1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 1: Johannes Hürter : A – F. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2000, ISBN 3-506-71840-1 , p. 430 and was seconded to the embassy in Madrid in October 1941.

predecessor	Office	successor
Charles of Luxburg	German Consul General in Calcutta 1922–1929	Rudolf von Bassewitz