Karl Emil Schabinger from Schowingen

Karl Emil Schabinger Freiherr von Schowingen (born September 27, 1877 in Gernsbach , † April 4, 1967 in Baden-Baden ) was a German diplomat and orientalist .

Life

Saddle Binger of Schowingen studied from 1897 at the University of Heidelberg Law . During this time he developed a strong interest in oriental studies . Therefore, after completing his law studies at the Seminar for Oriental Languages in Berlin , he decided to learn Persian and Turkish with Martin Hartmann .

In 1901 Schabinger von Schowingen entered the diplomatic service and initially became an interpreter at the imperial embassy in Tangier ( Morocco ). On March 22, 1915, Max von Oppenheim appointed him as his successor as head of the intelligence agency for the Orient . In this position he translated, among other things, the brochure “The Truth About the War of Faith” by Salih asch-Sharif at-Tunisi into German. This was part of the strategy to woo the Arabs of North Africa for jihad against French and British colonial rule and for the Central Powers .

In 1916 Schabinger was appointed German consul in Jaffa . He held this office until the end of the First World War . When Cemal Pasha ordered the evacuation of foreign civilians from Jaffa and Tel Aviv because of the approach of the British on March 28, 1917 , it quickly became clear that the military essentially only evacuated Jews, but allowed non-Jews to go. This created unrest, as the massacres of Armenians that had been going on since 1915 had also begun with eviction orders. In addition, after the beginning of the First World War, the Hohe Pforte de facto withdrew foreigners with permanent residence in the Ottoman Empire from their personal extraterritoriality and the subordination to the jurisdiction of their respective consuls , as stipulated in the surrenders of the Ottoman Empire . Believed Jews urged Schabinger to do something about it. That is why Schabinger and his Austro-Hungarian colleague went to the local Mutasarrıf on two consecutive days.

After the British defeat in the First Battle of Gaza on March 26, 1917, Schabinger and his colleague demanded an end to the militarily unnecessary evictions at Mutasarrıf on March 31. The evictions continued, but excluded non-Jews, which caused Schabinger to fear that there would be attacks on Jews. Schabinger declared that measures against Jews alone would damage the reputation of Germany and the Ottoman Empire. If the Mutasarrıf insists on the evacuation of Jewish Germans as well, he, Schabinger, will join the trek of the expelled Jews in order to prevent worse.

On April 1, Cemal Pascha Schabinger's superior, Consul General Johann Wilhelm Heinrich Brode (1874–1936) in Jerusalem, made reproaches for illegal interference with Schabinger in military matters. Brode turned down Cemals Pascha's offer to exclude non-Jewish Germans from the eviction and stated that he, Brode, could not accept unequal treatment of Jewish and non-Jewish Germans. Cemal Pasha could not be softened. He finally postponed the eviction period from April 6th ( Seder evening ) to April 9th ​​in order to enable the Jews to celebrate the beginning of Passover at home, took farmers who had to provide for livestock and agriculture from the evacuation, and provided transport capacity available, but otherwise insisted on the evacuation. Of the 10,000 to 11,000 displaced Jews, 900 to 1,500 died of exhaustion, hunger and cold.

In mid-April, Cemal Pascha's request to evacuate Jerusalem as well was rejected by Brode and other consuls of the city. In view of the many Jerusalemites, many more dead were to be expected when they were driven out. But finally General Friedrich Kress von Kressenstein obtained through Ottoman military authorities their order to Cemal Pascha to withdraw the evacuation order for Jerusalem, which happened on April 26, 1917. From 1918 to 1924 Schabinger worked in the Orient Department of the Foreign Office .

In 1924, at the age of 47, he finally retired from active service and devoted himself to oriental studies. On November 1, 1930 he joined the NSDAP (membership no. 358.048).

He wrote important publications about the Seljuq vizier Nizam al-Mulk , whose writings he translated from Persian into German. In 1967, shortly before his death, he published his memoirs under the title “ Weltgeschichtliche Mosaiksplitter. Experiences and memories of an imperial dragoman ”.

Fonts (selection)

• Nizāmulmulk: Siyāsatnāma. Thoughts and stories. For the first time translated from Persian into German and introduced. Alber, Freiburg / Munich 1960.
• World historical mosaic fragments. Experiences and memories of an imperial dragoman. KF Schabinger Ms. von Schowingen, Baden-Baden 1967.

literature

• Heribert Busse: Obituary. Karl Emil Schabinger Baron von Schowingen. 1877-1967. In: Islam. Vol. 45, No. 1, 1969, ISSN  0021-1818 , pp. 94-95, doi : 10.1515 / islm . 1969.45.1.94 .
• Gabriele Teichmann, Gisela Völger (Ed.): Fascination Orient. Max von Oppenheim - researcher, collector, diplomat. DuMont, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-7701-5849-0 .
• Maren Bragulla: The news agency for the Orient. Case study of a propaganda institution in the First World War. VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrücken 2007, ISBN 978-3-8364-4642-6 .
• Biographical manual of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Volume 4: S. Edited by the Foreign Office, Historical Service, edited by: Bernd Isphording, Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-71843-3 , p. 33 f.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Josef van Ess : Jihad yesterday and today (= Julius Wellhausen Lecture. H. 3). De Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-024569-1 , p. 36.
2. ^ Tilman Lüdke: Jihad Made in Germany. Ottoman and German Propaganda and Intelligence Operations in the First World War. Lit, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-8071-0 (also: Oxford, University, dissertation, 2001).
3. ↑ Britta Oertel, Brigitte Resnik: 120 years of training as interpreters and translators at Berlin University: 1887–2007. In: Hartwig Kalverkämper , Larisa Schippel (ed.): Translation between text and world. Translation studies as a historical discipline between the modern and the future (= TransÜD. Vol. 20). Frank & Timme, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86596-202-7 , pp. 641-674, here p. 667.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Isaiah Friedman, Germany, Turkey, and Zionism 1897-1918 , New Brunswick (NJ): Transaction, 1998, p. 348. ISBN 0765804077 .
5. ↑ Frank Foerster, Mission in the Holy Land: Der Jerusalems-Verein zu Berlin 1852-1945 , Gütersloh: Mohn, 1991 (= Missionswissenschaftliche Forschungen; [NS], Vol. 25), p. 124. ISBN 3-579-00245-7 .
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Isaiah Friedman, Germany, Turkey, and Zionism 1897-1918 , New Brunswick (NJ): Transaction, 1998, p. 349. ISBN 0765804077 .
7. ↑ David B. Green, “This Day in Jewish History 1917: Ottoman Authority Orders Jews to Evacuate Tel Aviv,” in: Ha'aretz (April 6, 2014), accessed May 8, 2017.
8. ^ ^{A b} Isaiah Friedman, Germany, Turkey, and Zionism 1897-1918 , New Brunswick (NJ): Transaction, 1998, p. 351. ISBN 0765804077 .
9. ^ Ekkehard Ellinger: German Oriental Studies at the time of National Socialism. 1933-1945. Deux-Mondes-Verlag, Edingen-Neckarhausen 2006, ISBN 3-932662-11-3 , p. 35, (also: Berlin, Freie Universität, dissertation, 2003).