John Wheeler-Bennett

Sir John Wheeler Wheeler-Bennett (born October 13, 1902 in Keston , Kent , † December 9, 1975 in London ) was a British historian.

Wheeler-Bennett, who came from wealthy circles and whose mother came from Canada (Nova Scotia), went to the Wellington House schools in Westgate-on-Sea and Malvern College , then went on trips and was with the League of Nations in Geneva in 1923/24 in their public relations department. In 1924 he became director of the information service of the Royal Institution of International Affairs and editor of its Bulletin of International Affairs until 1930. In 1926, after the death of his father, he inherited an inheritance of 680,000 pounds and from then on lived mainly on the continent, in particular in Germany until 1934, when he became a specialist in German politics and history. He also unofficially advised the British government.

In 1938/39 he was a lecturer in international relations at the University of Virginia and in 1940/41 he worked for the British Information Service in New York City. In 1942 he went back to England and served in the Political Warfare Department of the Foreign Office and became Deputy Director of the Political Intelligence Department. In 1944/45 he was on the political advisory staff of the Allied headquarters in Europe. After the war he assisted the prosecutors in the Nuremberg trials. In 1945 he married the American Ruth Risher and lived near Oxford, where he lectured on international relations at St. Antony's College and New College until 1950 (he never went to university himself). From 1946 he was editor of the Documents on German Foreign Policy from the files of the Foreign Office seized by the Allies. From 1959 he was historical advisor to the Royal Archives. In 1958 he was the founding director of the Ditchley Foundation (a British-US contact group).

In 1936 he published a biography of Paul von Hindenburg . After the death of George VI. In 1952 he was commissioned to write his official biography. He is best known for a book on the political role of the German army in the time of National Socialism and before (The Nemesis of Power). After that, the Reichswehr under Hans von Seeckt was a state within the state, but stayed out of politics, which only changed under his successor Kurt von Schleicher , who had his hand in replacing Seeckt and intrigued against the political leadership of the Weimar Republic and whose gravedigger (according to Wheeler-Bennett) was. Under National Socialism, the generals ranked after Wheeler-Bennett under Blomberg and Fritsch, satisfied with the militarization of society, but lost their independent political role after the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis in 1938. The resistance that led to the assassination attempt of July 20, 1944 was too late for Wheeler-Bennett, although he appreciated the courage of the actors (for example he knew Adam von Trott zu Solz personally from New York). He was not only critical of the conservative German elites before the war, but also of the appeasement policies of the western side and he was an admirer of Winston Churchill .

Wheeler-Bennett published three volumes of autobiography.

He was a Fellow of the British Academy (1972) and the Royal Society of Literature , and he was OBE , GCVO , CMG .

literature

• Victoria Schofield: Witness to History: The Life of John Wheeler-Bennett, Yale University Press 2012

Fonts

• Information on the Reduction of Armaments , 1925 (with foreword by Major-General Sir Neill L. Malcolm).
• Information on the Renunciation of War, 1927–1928 , 1928, (preface by Philipp H. Kerr).
• Disarmament And Security Since Locarno 1925-1931; Being The Political And Technical Background of the General Disarmament Conference, 1932 , New York: Macmillan, 1932.
• The Wreck of Reparations, Being The Political Background of the Lausanne Agreement, 1932 , 1933.
• The Pipe Dream Of Peace: The Story Of The Collapse Of Disarmament , William Morrow and Company, 1935.
• Hindenburg: The Wooden Titan , London: Macmillan and Company, 1936.
  • The wooden titanium , Tübingen 1969
• Brest-Litovsk: The Forgotten Peace, March 1918 , 1938.
• Munich: Prologue To Tragedy , 1948.
• The Nemesis Of Power: The German Army In Politics, 1918–1945 , 1953, revised new edition 1964.
  • The nemesis of power: the German army in politics 1918-1945 , Königstein / Taunus: Athenaeum
• King George VI, His Life And Reign , St. Martin's Press, 1958.
• John Anderson, Viscount Waverley , St. Martin's Press, 1962.
• A Wreath To Clio: Studies In British, American and German Affairs , St. Martin's Press, 1967
• Brest-Litovsk the Forgotten Peace, March 1918 , Norton 1971
• with Anthony Nicholls: The Semblance Of Peace: The Political Settlement After The Second World War , WW Norton and Company, 1972.
• Editor with Frank Pakenham Longford: The History Makers: Leaders And Statesmen of The 20th Century , New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973.
• Knaves, Fools And Heroes: In Europe Between The Wars , New York: Macmillan, 1974.
• Special Relationships: America In Peace And War , New York: Macmillan, 1975.
• Friends, Enemies, And Sovereigns , New York: Macmillan, 1976

Individual evidence

1. ^ Review by Doug Munro