Helmer Rosting

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Helmer Rostgaard Rosting (born July 8, 1893 in Thisted as Helmer Rostgaard Gommesen Rosting , † June 28, 1945 in Copenhagen ) was a Danish theologian, diplomat, high commissioner in the Free City of Danzig (1932-1933) and director of the Danish Red Cross (1939-1945).

Life

First years

After graduating from school in Randers in 1910 , Helmer Rosting studied theology , master's degree in 1917. During the First World War , he went to France for the Red Cross and worked in prisoner-of-war camps. In 1927 he married the Swedish Countess Agnete Elisabeth Hamilton (1903-1967).

League of Nations

From there he moved to Geneva in 1920 and was the first Dane to work in the secretariat of the League of Nations , first in the department for the protection of national minorities, from 1924 in the office for League of Nations mandates . He took over its management in 1930. Due to the sudden death of Manfredi Gravina , Rosting was interim High Commissioner in the Free City of Danzig until Seán Lester took over from him . His mediation work between German and Polish interests in Danzig was recognized. But Rosting seems to have turned away from parliamentary-democratic ideas during this time. He initially returned to Geneva, but developed into a critic of the League of Nations and took his leave in 1936. This was followed by a brief episode as a department head in the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Red Cross

In 1937 he was sent by the Red Cross to Spain, which was torn by civil war . At the same time he campaigned for his homeland to leave the League of Nations. With the outbreak of World War II he became director of the Red Cross Office for Foreign Affairs and Prisoner of War Aid. The first tasks arose from the winter war in Finland and the fighting over Norway .

In the summer of 1940 Rosting showed clear sympathy for Nazi Germany and advocated a corresponding restructuring of the Danish government. Although he did not join the DNSAP , he was traded internally as a candidate for a ministerial post in a puppet government , in 1940 as foreign minister and in 1942 as minister of the church. In 1943, through Helga von Schalburg, widow of Christian Frederik von Schalburg , he tried to persuade Prince Knud to influence King Christian X to admit National Socialist ministers into the government.

His office as director of the Red Cross was not unaffected by his pro-German attitude. Until 1943 the organization refused to provide any appreciable aid to persecuted Jews in Europe. When Danish communists were deported to the Stutthof concentration camp at the end of 1943 , Rosting refused to organize weekly dispatches of clothing and food packages, arguing that the prisoners in Stutthof should not be treated better than other Danes interned in Germany. He also expressed concerns about secretly including vitamin supplements in the packages for the Theresienstadt ghetto because German regulations excluded medical and food shipments. Rosting only gave in when Professor Richard Ege, a physiologist engaged in humanitarian aid work, gave the line of argument that vitamins are neither medicine nor food. In September 1943 he offered the Reich Plenipotentiary Werner Best to intern the Danish Jews; In return, the Germans were to have the Danish soldiers withdrawn, who had been interned in the barracks since the Scavenius government requested resignation on August 29th. Then one could threaten the deportation of the Jews to the East if acts of sabotage were to continue in Denmark.

With the liberation of Denmark from German occupation in 1945, Rosting was arrested by a resistance group on May 6th. He was released after interrogation, but was arrested again by another unit the following day. He subsequently suffered a nervous breakdown and was treated in a Copenhagen hospital. A little later he took his own life.

The suspicion that Rosting was involved in a German espionage network has not yet been confirmed.

Works

  • Protection of minorities by the League of Nations , Geneva 1922
  • Mindretals-Problemer i Europa , Copenhagen 1938
  • Røde Kors i Krig og Fred , Copenhagen 1942

literature

  • Finn TB Friis, Viggo Sjøqvist: Rosting, Helmer . In: Dansk Biografisk Leksikon (DBL), 3rd edition, Vol. 12, Copenhagen 1982, pp. 407f.
  • Henning Poulsen: BesættelsesmAGEN og de danske nazister , Copenhagen 1970 (Diss. Phil. University of Aarhus)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tobias C. Bringmann : Handbuch der Diplomatie 1815-1963 . KG Saur, 2001, p. 67 ( limited preview in the Google book search)
  2. ↑ Hans Viktor Böttcher: The Free City of Danzig . Cultural Foundation of German Displaced Persons , 1995, p. 90 ( limited preview in Google book search)
  3. ^ Marek Andrzejewski: Opposition and Resistance in Danzig, 1933 to 1939 . Dietz, 1994, p. 34 ( limited preview in the Google book search)
  4. ^ Dansk Biografisk Leksikon (DBL): Helmer Rosting
  5. ↑ Henning Poulsen: BesættelsesmAGEN og de danske nazister , Copenhagen 1970, pp. 65, 197, 346
  6. ↑ Henning Poulsen: BesættelsesmAGEN og de danske nazister , p. 345
  7. ↑ Bent Blüdnikow: Dansk Røde Kors fortier sin fortid Berlingske online 15 June 2006
  8. ↑ Jørgen Hæstrup : Til landets bedste. Hovedtræk af departementschefsstyrets virke 1943–45 , Vol. 1, pp. 395f, 405
  9. ^ Jørgen Hæstrup: Til landets bedste , Vol. 1, p. 410
  10. ^ DBL: Helmer Rosting
  11. ↑ Frederik beach: Førerens Germanske poor. SS i Danmark , Copenhagen 2006, p. 183.
personal data
SURNAME Rosting, Helmer
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rosting, Helmer Rostgaard Gommesen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish diplomat, High Commissioner in the Free City of Danzig (1921–1923) and Director of the Danish Red Cross (1939–1945)
DATE OF BIRTH July 8, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Thisted
DATE OF DEATH June 28, 1945
Place of death Copenhagen