Johannes Ullrich

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Johannes Ullrich (born February 17, 1902 in Marklissa , Province of Silesia , † December 25, 1965 in Bonn ) was a German historian , archivist and head of the Political Archives of the Foreign Office (1938–1945, 1956–1965).

Life

After attending the Victoria-Gymnasium in Potsdam, Johannes Ullrich studied history at the University of Berlin and received his doctorate in 1929 under Friedrich Meinecke with a thesis on Heinrich Laube as a political character.

From 1930 to 1931 he completed the Prussian archivist training at the Institute for Archival Science in Berlin-Dahlem. After passing his exams, he found a job at the Political Archive of the Foreign Office (AA) in Berlin, where he worked his way up from a research assistant (1933) to an archive manager (1938) within a few years. Although he refused to join the NSDAP and was otherwise noticed as a critical spirit, he was appointed Legation Councilor in 1939 and served as civil servant. However, there were no further regular promotions.

In August 1940, Ullrich announced on behalf of the AA High Command to send a Commission to which in Tours proven records of the French Foreign Ministry ( Quai d'Orsay should check). In addition to Kurt Jagow , she included Peter Klassen and Heinz Günther Sasse . According to a report by Jagow, "material that appeared urgently suitable for processing" was transferred to Berlin. The files were confiscated by the Künsberg special command .

In the summer of 1943, on the orders of his superiors, Ullrich relocated important archives of the Foreign Office from the endangered Berlin to the Harz Mountains . Contrary to an instruction at the beginning of 1945 to go to the archived material in the Harz Mountains for reasons of personal security, he stayed in Berlin out of concern for the archive material remaining in the capital.

In April 1945 he was arrested by the Soviet occupying forces, imprisoned in Berlin for several months and finally flown to Moscow. This was followed by a three-year prison term and sentenced (1948) by a military court to ten years in a labor camp. At the beginning of 1955 Ullrich was released and returned to Berlin, physically and mentally badly damaged. After several months of convalescence, he was reinstated in his old position as head of the Political Archives in 1956. He worked there until his untimely death in 1965.

literature

  • Astrid M. Eckert: Fight for the files. The Western Allies and the return of German archive material after the Second World War . Series: Transatlantic Historical Studies, 20. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 978-3-515-08554-0 .
  • Eckart Conze , Norbert Frei u. a .: The office and the past. German diplomats in the Third Reich and in the Federal Republic. Blessing, Munich 2010, pp. 326–327.
  • Niels Hansen : A true hero of that time. On the thirtieth anniversary of Johannes Ullrich's death . In: Historische Mitteilungen 9 (1996), pp. 95-109.
  • Wolfgang Leesch : The German archivists 1500–1945. Volume 2: Biographical Lexicon. Saur, Munich a. a. 1992, ISBN 3-598-10605-X , pp. 627-628.
  • Hans Philippi : Johannes Ulrich † . In: Der Archivar 20 (1967), Sp. 97-100.
  • Obituary by Ernst Posner . In: The American Archivist , Vol. 29 (1966), pp. 405-408.
  • Bernd Isphording, Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger (Red.): Biographical manual of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945 . Vol. 5: T – Z, supplements. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Schöningh, Paderborn 2014, ISBN 978-3-506-71844-0 , p. 90 f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Martin Kröger and Roland Thimme: The Political Archive of the Foreign Office in World War II. Security, escape, loss, return, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 47 (1999), pp. 243–264 ( PDF )
personal data
SURNAME Ullrich, Johannes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian, archivist
DATE OF BIRTH February 17, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Marklissa
DATE OF DEATH December 25, 1965
Place of death Bonn