Johannes von Welczeck

Johannes Bernhard Graf von Welczeck sen. (Born September 2, 1878 in Laband ; † October 11, 1972 in Marbella ) was a German diplomat .

family

He came from the primeval noble family v. Welczeck and was the son of Louise von Hatzfeld-Trachenberg and Bernhard von Welczeck . He married Luisa Balmaceda y Fontecilla, a niece of José Manuel Balmaceda, in Santiago de Chile on November 20, 1910 . His children were:

• Johannes Graf von Welczeck jun. (* October 1, 1911 in Santiago de Chile; † March 4, 1969), received his doctorate in 1940 on the subject of overcoming the doctrine of the separation of powers through the principles of leadership and national community , was the authorized representative of the Federal Republic of Germany in Chile in 1956 From September to October 4, 1958, he represented the Federal Republic of Germany at the General Conference of the IAEA in Vienna and in 1967 was chief of protocol at the Foreign Office.
• Louise Freiin von Welczeck (born August 20, 1913 in Dresden), married Clément Aldobrandini on November 29, 1941 in Nötsch , Carinthia
• Nicolas Graf von Welczeck (born June 3, 1916 in Laband)
• Inès Freiin von Welczeck (born March 23, 1919 in Berlin)

Life

Welczeck studied at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn . In 1897 he became a member of the Corps Borussia Bonn . He joined the Foreign Office in 1904 . In 1908 he was legation secretary to Ambassador Hans von und zu Bodman in Santiago de Chile . He was lobbying for weapons from the German Reich. In 1915 he was promoted to legation councilor and Prussian chargé d'affaires in the Kingdom of Saxony in Dresden. In 1919, von Welczeck was put into temporary retirement. From 1923 to 1926 he was envoy of the German Reich in Budapest . From December 7, 1925 to April 1936, von Welczeck was ambassador in Madrid . The arrival of the ambassadorial post at the end of 1925 coincided with the signing of a contract for the delivery of a production plant for torpedoes for five million Reichsmarks, which was financed by the Deutsche Bank , branch Banco Aleman Transatlantico . On January 26, 1926, the Basque shipyard owner Horacio Echevarrieta (1870–1963) signed a ten-year contract with the naval management for the creation and operation of a manufacturing facility for torpedoes . This bypassed the arms production ban in the Versailles Peace Treaty . Wilhelm Canaris informed Alfonso XIII on May 20, 1926 and then also Johannes von Welczeck and the consul in Barcelona Ulrich von Hassell about the contract. From May 9 to July 15, 1932, von Welczeck represented the German Reich at the League of Nations in Geneva at a disarmament conference.

After the Nazis seized power in 1933, Welczeck joined the NSDAP on October 1, 1934 . From 1936 to 1939 von Welczeck was ambassador in Paris . From July until the Reichskristallnacht , Ernst Eduard vom Rath was employed there as the legation secretary. At the beginning of August 1940, Welczeck was put on hold. Otto Abetz took over the representation of the German Reich in the Vichy regime . In 1943 Welczeck was retired.

literature

• 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. 228 f.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Servicio Diplomático y Consular extranjero residente en Chile. ( Memento of the original from February 4, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ^ The second session of the General Conference of the IAEA.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 737 kB)  
3. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 9 , 803
4. ↑ Donald J. Stocker, Jonathan A. Grant: Girding for Battle. The Arms Trade in a Global Perspective. 1815-1940. Greenwood Publishing Group 2003, p. 69 ( digitized version )
5. ↑ Michael Mueller: Canaris. The Life and Death of Hitler's Spymaster. Translated by Geoffrey Brooks, Naval Institute Press, 2007, p. 69 ( digitized version )
6. ^ Roland Ray: Approaching France in the service of Hitler? Otto Abetz and German French Policy, 1930-1942. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2000, p. 313 note 26 ( digitized version )
7. ↑ Johannes von Welczeck in the online version of the edition files of the Reich Chancellery. Weimar Republic