Josef Hans Lazar
Josef Hans Lazar (born October 5, 1895 in Istanbul , † May 9, 1961 in Vienna ) was an Austrian and from 1939 German diplomat and press attaché .
Life
Lazar studied law and was a soldier in the First World War from 1915 to November 1918 , most recently as a lieutenant in the kuk military representative in the Ottoman Empire. Lazar was wounded and became a morphinist . From 1920 he was a correspondent for the Vienna New Free Press in Constantinople . From July 1927 he was a correspondent for the German news office in Bucharest , at the same time a consultant for the Austrian Federal Press Service, since 1935 with the title of government councilor, from 1937 as a legation councilor in the Austrian Foreign Service. During the Spanish Civil War , Lazar worked as a correspondent for the Transocean news agency , which was subordinate to the German Reich Propaganda Ministry under Joseph Goebbels . In 1937 he married Helene Baroness Petrino.
Until the annexation of Austria on March 12, 1938, Lazar was Balkan correspondent for the Neue Freie Presse and press attaché of the Republic of Austria in Berlin. On the night of March 12th to 13th, 1938, he was called back to Vienna and appointed head of the press department. His only task was to read the text of the law on the connection to the correspondents of the foreign press in Vienna on March 13 at 8:00 p.m. In June 1938 Lazar moved to Spain, joined the German Foreign Service on July 5, 1939 and became a press attaché at the German embassy in Madrid, where he became a gray eminence . In 1940 he was awarded the Imperial Order of the Yugo y las Flechas con Encomienda .
As the head of the embassy press department, he managed to check numerous community papers with a circulation of up to 170,000 copies, which he financed through SOFINDUS and in which he made propaganda for the National Socialist German Reich. Skoda representative Reinhard Spitzy remembered: Adolf Hitler didn't trust Lazar, he wanted to replace him, but he couldn't. Lazar was installed like a spider in the web in Spain. He controlled 200 parish papers across Spain. Would you like to have your own newspaper? He asked the pastors? He financed it through advertising by German companies such as Siemens , Mercedes or Merck , which SOFINDUS paid for.
In 1942 Lazar started a demanding propaganda campaign, El Gran Plan , in which hundreds of people from the Falange and the Spanish postal authorities worked with him in 28 cities, distributing leaflets and spreading a message from Hitler from mouth to ear. So he influenced public opinion in fascist Spain in favor of the National Socialist German Reich. His luxuriously designed life not only attracted US and British agents to watch him, but also raised suspicions among Paul Winzer, the Gestapo representative at the embassy.
After 1950 Lazar was the managing director of a trading company in Madrid. In 1956 he emigrated to Brazil and later returned to Austria.
novel
- The monstrance of Villalarga . Munich: Nymphenburger Verl.-Handl., 1952
literature
- Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 3: Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: L – R. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2008, ISBN 978-3-506-71842-6 , p. 33
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Isabella Ackerl , Scientific Commission for Research into the Republic of Austria, Rudolf Neck: Spiritual Life in Austria of the First Republic . P. 375
- ^ Josef Hans Lazar , at gatopardo
- ↑ Peter Longerich: Propagandists in War: The Press Department of the Foreign Office under Ribbentrop . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 1987, p. 202
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lazar, Josef Hans |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian-German diplomat and press attaché |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 5, 1895 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Istanbul |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 9, 1961 |
| Place of death | Vienna |