Lothar Eisträger

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Lothar Eisträger (born December 9, 1896 in Sohlis ; † 1963 ) (pseudonym Ludwig Erhardt) was a German diplomat and officer .

Life

After attending school, Eisträger took part in the First World War as an officer candidate for the Guard Fusilier Regiment . In December 1914 he was promoted to lieutenant and later to first lieutenant . In the early 1930s, Eisträger worked as a newsman. He maintained close relationships with Werner von Alvensleben, among others .

Eisträger, who at that time lived at Wielandstrasse No. 18 in Berlin, had been a member of the NSDAP since 1932 ( membership number 1,331,648).

In the course of the Röhm affair in early summer 1934, Eisträger was briefly arrested and held in the Gestapo's house prison .

In 1941 Eisträger was sent to the Japanese-occupied China as an employee of the Abwehr Office in the High Command of the Wehrmacht - since 1942 a lieutenant colonel . Under the cover identity as Kaufmann Erhardt, he took over the management of the German intelligence service of the Abwehr in China, the "War Organization China" (Bureau Erhardt) stationed in Shanghai . At the beginning of the Pacific War , the German agent activity in the Chinese area was expanded under the direction of Eisenträgers. Since 1942, various branches of the Shanghai office in Beijing , Qingdao , Canton and elsewhere have started their work. The task of the network, led by Eisträger, was to carry out espionage and sabotage tasks in China in cooperation with Japanese authorities and to first evaluate the information gathered there and pass it on to Berlin. They were also responsible for observing Germans abroad , especially emigrants and their contacts, in China.

After the surrender of Japan , Eisträger and his staff were arrested by the Allies . Since they continued to actively support the Japanese war efforts against the Allies in the period between the German surrender in May 1945 and the Japanese surrender in autumn by passing on information and material, they were brought before an American court martial for violating the terms of the armistice signed by Germany and charged against martial law. The trial taking place in Shanghai ( “United States of America vs. Lothar Eisentraeger” ) lasted from October 3, 1946 to January 14, 1947 and ended with Eisenträgers sentenced to life imprisonment. The co-defendant Ernst Woermann , from April 1943 to May 1945 ambassador of the German Reich to the national Chinese government in Nanjing and the Legation Councilor and political advisor in Shanghai Elgar von Randow were acquitted because the diplomats could not be proven, the employees of the Ehrhardt office “To have“ led ”. Eisträger and his fellow prisoners were brought to Germany in February 1947 and imprisoned there in the American war crimes prison in Landsberg .

The Washington District Court refused a detention test in 1950 because it had no jurisdiction because the plaintiffs had never set foot on American soil. On this precedent “Johnson vs. Iron Girders ” appealed to the same court in 2002 on an application for a trial of the Guantanamo prisoners , a decision that was overturned by the US Supreme Court in June 2004. In 1950 Eisträger and his fellow prisoners were released early.

It was later criticized that the actions of Eisenträger's people against Jewish emigrants in Shanghai played no role in the court martial of 1946/1947.

literature

  • Mechthild Leutner: Germany and China 1937-1945. Politics, military, economy, culture , 1996.
  • Astrid Freyeisen: Shanghai and the politics of the third Reich. Würzburg: Königshausen and Neumann Verlag, 2000. ISBN 3-8260-1690-4
  • United States Army Military Commission: Before the Military Commission convened by the Commanding General, Nanking Headquarters Command, China: United States of America vs. Lothar Eisentraeger, alias Ludwig Ehrhardt , 1946.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Berlin Document Center
  2. ↑ Erika Bucholtz: The "house prison" of the Gestapo headquarters in Berlin , 2005, p. 217.
  3. ↑ see: A military operation DER SPIEGEL 17/1949
  4. ↑ see: Axel Frohn, The Silence of Laws DER SPIEGEL 17/2004 .
  5. ↑ Thomas Raitel: The Landsberg am Lech prison and the Spöttinger Friedhof , 2009, p. 56.
  6. ↑ TRIAL OF LOTHAR EISENTRAGER AND OTHERS BEFORE A UNITED STATES MILITARY COMMISSION, ~ SHANGHAI, CHINA 3rd OCTOBER, 1946-14TH JANUARY, 1947 (PDF; 9.0 MB)
personal data
SURNAME Iron girders, Lothar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ludwig Erhardt (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat and officer
DATE OF BIRTH December 9, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Sohlis
DATE OF DEATH 1963