Hellmuth Weiss

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Franz Robert Hellmuth Weiss (born October 10, jul. / 23. October  1900 greg. In Reval estn (Tallinn). † 10. April 1992 in Marburg ) was a politician of the German minority in Estonia , President of the Estonian German Cultural Management and temporarily Member of the Rahvuskogu .

Live and act

Hellmuth Weiss came from an old Revaler family and was the son of the bookseller and senior man of the Great Guild Robert Weiss. His mother came from Memel . Hellmuth Weiss attended the cathedral school in Reval . In autumn 1918 he studied history, geography and German at the Dorpat University, which was reopened under German occupation . From 1918 to 1920 he took part in the Estonian War of Independence as a volunteer in the Baltic regiment . In 1920/21 he continued his studies in Greifswald and from 1921 to 1925 in Tübingen. He graduated with a doctorate in 1925. Two years later Weiss became head of the libraries of the Estonian Literary Society and the Estonian German Cultural Administration in Tallinn, in 1936 Vice President of the Estonian Literary Society and in 1931 head of the Cultural Office. In 1933 he became Vice President and in 1939 President of the Estonian German Cultural Administration.

Hellmuth Weiss was appointed to the second chamber (Riiginõukogu) of the Estonian National Assembly (Rahvuskogu) in 1937 as a representative of the cultural administrations of the German and Jewish minorities. As the leading representative of the German ethnic group, he played a key role in the negotiations on the resettlement of Germans from Estonia in 1939/40 . As part of the Hitler-Stalin Pact , the Soviet Union was allowed to occupy Estonia. The Germans were resettled in the Reich.

After the resettlement had been carried out, Hellmuth Weiss was from 1940 an expert on the German delegation in negotiations with the Estonian government about the export of cultural goods. In January 1941, he became the area plenipotentiary for the resettlement of Germans who had stayed behind in Estonia. On March 21, 1940, he received German citizenship through naturalization in Poznan. On May 10, 1941, Weiss applied to join the NSDAP and became member No. 8,727,555 on January 1, 1942 . After the attack on the Soviet Union , the Baltic States were occupied by German troops in 1941. Hellmuth Weiss returned to Tallinn, where from 1941 to 1944 he was head of the cultural policy department in the Ostland General Commissariat . In 1944 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and did military service until 1945. After that he was briefly in Soviet captivity.

After his release, he worked as an interpreter in Potsdam for two years , but then had to flee to the West from the Soviet Zone . From 1950 he lived in Marburg. There he worked from 1952 to 1959 as head of the library of the JG Herder Institute and from 1959 to 1965 as its director. He was also a managing member of the board from 1959 to 1970 and vice-president of the Johann Gottfried Herder Research Council in Marburg from 1974 to 1975 .

Weiss is the author of numerous publications with historical and bibliographical content and editor of journals and research series, e. B. the Marburger Ostforschungen (1960–1969) and the Zeitschrift für Ostforschung (1960–1990).

Weiss was a member of the Baltic Corporation Estonia Dorpat and an honorary philistine of the Corona Dorpatensis Marburg.

literature

  • Mads Ole Balling: From Reval to Bucharest - Statistical-Biographical Manual of the Parliamentarians of the German Minorities in Eastern Central and Southeastern Europe 1919–1945, Vol. 1: Introduction, systematics, sources and methods, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia. 1st edition, 2nd edition. Documentation-Verlag, Copenhagen 1991, ISBN 87-983829-3-4 , p. 121.
  • Hugo Weczerka : In memoriam Dr. Hellmuth Weiss. In: Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 41, 1992, pp. 481-488.
  • Jürgen von Hehn / Csaba János Kenéz: Reval and the Baltic countries. Festschrift for Hellmuth Weiss for his 80th birthday . Marburg / Lahn 1980.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Addendum to the album Estonorum 1939 . Bovenden 1961 No. 1196a
  2. ↑ Corona Dorpatensis Marburg: ALBUM FRATRUM 1947-1967, No. III
personal data
SURNAME Weiss, Hellmuth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weiss, Franz Robert Hellmuth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Estonian politician (NSDAP), member of the Riigikogu, President of the Estonian German Cultural Administration
DATE OF BIRTH October 23, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Reval
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 1992
Place of death Marburg