Helmut Bergmann (diplomat)

Helmut Bergmann (* 26. August 1898 in Klein Oschersleben ; † 15. July 1946 in Moscow ) was a German lawyer , who during the Weimar Republic and the Nazi era in the Foreign Office as a diplomat worked and as war criminals in Moscow in 1946 executed was .

Live and act

From 1925 Bergmann worked in the Federal Foreign Office. From 1930 to 1932 he served in the German embassy in Moscow , then he worked in Danzig as vice consul and legation counselor. From 1936 he was a Legation Counselor in the Political Department of the Foreign Office. From 1937 to 1945, as envoy 1st class, he was deputy head of the department for senior officials in the Foreign Office. In 1939 he became a lecturer in the Legation Council and in 1941 he was appointed Minister First Class as ministerial conductor, temporarily head of the German Department of the Foreign Office. As deputy head of the personnel and administration department, Bergmann was one of the key figures in the Federal Foreign Office. The head of this department was from 1941 Hans Schröder . According to a travel expense report, he was personally present at a rally and meeting in Posen by the Reich Governor Arthur Greiser and Robert Ley from December 15 to 17, 1939.

In 1942 and 1943 Bergmann was involved in the expulsion of foreign citizens of the Jewish faith from the territory and the sphere of influence of the German Reich , whose states were friendly with the German Reich. In 1942 he thanked the Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller for sending the Jewish advisor Theodor Dannecker to Sofia. In a letter dated March 9, 1943 to the party chancellery for submission to Reichsleiter Martin Bormann , he informed about the "German standpoint on the Jewish question" from the perspective of the Foreign Office on the occasion of a request from the "Hungarian side ... to the Budapest embassy". As part of the presentation of the German position, the Hungarian side should be advised to "agree to the immediate start of the resettlement and the transport to the east by the German organization appointed for this purpose". He was also "marginally" involved in the Nazi Jewish policy in Bulgaria.

As the senior member of a group of fifty members of the Foreign Office, he remained in Berlin until the end of the war. Bergmann was probably arrested in Berlin in June 1945. On the basis of Ukas 43 of November 2, 1942, Bergmann was sentenced to death by shooting on June 8, 1946 by the Military College of the Supreme Court of the USSR . In addition to his membership in the NSDAP, his work in the personnel selection for the Reich Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was decisive for the conviction . The sentence was carried out in Moscow on July 15, 1946.

literature

• Andreas Weigelt, Klaus-Dieter Müller, Thomas Schaarschmidt, Mike Schmeitzner (eds.): Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944–1947). A historical-biographical study. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-525-36968-5 , pp. 44 and 92 f.
• 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. 123
• Johannes Hürter (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871 - 1945. 5. T - Z, supplements. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 5: Bernd Isphording, Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2014, ISBN 978-3-506-71844-0 , p. 471.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Andreas Weigelt, Klaus-Dieter Müller, Thomas Schaarschmidt, Mike Schmeitzner (eds.): Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944-1947). A historical-biographical study. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-525-36968-5 , p. 44.
2. ↑ Andreas Weigelt, Klaus-Dieter Müller, Thomas Schaarschmidt, Mike Schmeitzner (eds.): Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944-1947). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-525-36968-5 , p. 92 f.
3. ↑ Andreas Weigelt, Klaus-Dieter Müller, Thomas Schaarschmidt, Mike Schmeitzner (eds.): Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944-1947). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-525-36968-5 , p. 92f.
4. ↑ Andreas Weigelt, Klaus-Dieter Müller, Thomas Schaarschmidt, Mike Schmeitzner (eds.): Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944-1947). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-525-36968-5 , p. 44.
5. ↑ Eckart Conze; Norbert Frei; Peter Hayes; Mosche Zimmermann: The Office and the Past - German Diplomats in the Third Reich and in the Federal Republic, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-89667-430-2 , p. 283.
6. ↑ Randolph L. Braham : The Destruction of Hungarian Jewry. A Documentary Account , Volume 1, New York: Pro Arte for the World Federation of Hungarian Jews 1963, pp. 208-211
7. ↑ Andreas Weigelt, Klaus-Dieter Müller, Thomas Schaarschmidt, Mike Schmeitzner (eds.): Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944-1947). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-525-36968-5 , p. 92f.
8. ↑ Eckart Conze; Norbert Frei; Peter Hayes; Mosche Zimmermann: The Office and the Past - German Diplomats in the Third Reich and in the Federal Republic, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-89667-430-2 . P. 325.
9. ↑ Andreas Weigelt, Klaus-Dieter Müller, Thomas Schaarschmidt, Mike Schmeitzner (eds.): Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944-1947). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-525-36968-5 , p. 92f.
10. ↑ Andreas Weigelt, Klaus-Dieter Müller, Thomas Schaarschmidt, Mike Schmeitzner (eds.): Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944-1947). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-525-36968-5 , p. 44.