Laurence Milner Robinson

Laurence Milner Robinson (born August 6, 1885 , † 1957 in Dorking ) was a British diplomat .

Life and activity

Robinson was a son of clergyman EC Robinson. He was educated at the Marlborough School and the University of Cambridge .

In September 1912, Robinson entered the British diplomatic service. After passing the entrance examination, he was appointed Vice Consul on September 17th. Its first use was in New York on March 18, 1913 . From there he was transferred to Santos on May 22, 1914 .

After the First World War it was used in Calais from November 15, 1920 . On January 1, 1921, he was promoted to consul in Budapest . In this capacity he was also British Associate Delegate to the International Commission for the Danube. He then served for a number of years as British Deputy Commissioner on the European Danube Commission.

In 1922 he was sent to Munich, where he stayed for two years. He then worked successively as Consul General in Galatz in Romania (1924–1930), Amsterdam (1930–1934), Danzig (1934–1937) and Hamburg (1937–1939). In Hamburg, Robinson witnessed the massively intensifying Nazi persecution of the Jews in 1938 and 1939, about which he sent numerous reports to London, which have recently been developed as an important source for the Jewish policy of the Nazi regime in those years. Frank Bajohr , who made these reports the subject of a lengthy article, came to the conclusion that Robinson, who frequented circles of the liberal Hamburg bourgeoisie, had significantly underestimated the National Socialist penetration of the Hamburg population in his reporting. In 1939 he said that Hamburg had never wholeheartedly supported National Socialism.

When the Second World War broke out , Robinson was transferred to Basel . In 1940 he was sent to Philadelphia, where he remained until his retirement in 1945.

At the end of the 1930s, Robinson was classified as an important target by the police forces of National Socialist Germany. In the spring of 1940 the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a list of people whom the Nazi surveillance apparatus considered particularly dangerous or important, which is why they would be removed from the United States in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht Occupation troops following special SS commandos should be located and arrested with special priority.

family

In 1933 Robinson married Lesley, b. GA Tomkinson.

literature

• Frank Bajohr : Between wishful thinking and reality The reports of the British Consul General on the persecution of Jews in Hamburg in 1938/39. In: Andreas rmer / Stefanie Schüler-Springorum / Michael Studemund-Helvy: From the sources. Contributions to Jewish history. Festschrift for Ina Lorenz on her 65th birthday. Munich 2005, p. 329ff.
• Who was who: 1951-1960. A Companion to Who's Who, Containing the Biographies of Those who Died During the Period , 1961, p. 940.

Individual evidence

1. ^ In Hamburg, Robinson's administrative district comprised the states of Hamburg, Mecklenburg, Braunschweig, Lippe, Schaumburg-Lippe; prussia. Prov. Schleswig-Holstein and Hanover east of the Weser with the exception of the Wesermünde district.
2. ↑ Laurence Milner Robinson (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London)