Moritz von Schirmeister

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Moritz Augustus Konstantin von Schirmeister (born August 12, 1901 in Mulhouse in Alsace, † after 1946) was a German journalist and civil servant. He was best known as a high-ranking employee of Joseph Goebbels in the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda from 1933 to 1945.

Live and act

During the Weimar Republic , Schirmeister worked as a journalist for the Schlesische Zeitung and a newspaper in Braunschweig. In 1931 he joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( membership number 672.910). Schirmeister was also a member of the SS (membership number 267.235), in 1940 with the rank of Hauptsturmführer.

In 1933, Schirmeister was appointed to the newly founded Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in Berlin because of his experience as a press editor. There he was - first with the rank of government councilor, later as senior government councilor - until 1943 as Joseph Goebbels' personal press officer (press adjutant), he was one of the closest employees of the Propaganda Minister. Schirmeister's activity in the Propaganda Ministry between 1933 and 1943 was only interrupted by his participation as a soldier in the Russian campaign in 1941, which lasted several months. However, on January 16, 1942, he returned to his old position at the Ministry. On July 1, 1943, Schirmeister was replaced as press officer by Wilfred von Oven . As a press officer, Schirmeister was an important advisor and provider of information to Goebbels in all press questions. In addition, during the war years he kept minutes at most of the conferences of the leadership of the Propaganda Ministry and published several anthologies with reprints of speeches and essays by Goebbels. From July 1944, Schirmeister worked at the Wehrmacht Information Center for Warrior Losses and Prisoners of War (WASt).

In 1945, Schirmeister was arrested by the British and interned in a prisoner of war camp in England. In 1946 the British took Schirmeister from London to Germany by plane and brought him to the interrogation center of the British military police in Minden an der Weser . From there he was transferred to Nuremberg - together with the former commandant of Auschwitz Rudolf Höß - to testify as a witness in the Nuremberg trials .

A few years later he emigrated to Chile .

Fonts

editor
  • Joseph Goebbels: The Bronze Heart, speeches and essays from the years 1941/42 , Munich 1943. (Collection of Goebbels speeches )
  • Joseph Goebbels: The steep climb. Speeches and essays from 1942/43 , Munich 1944. (Collection of Goebbelsreden)

literature

  • Willi A. Boelcke (Ed.): War Propaganda 1939–1941. Secret ministerial conferences in the Reich Propaganda Ministry. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1966.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 523f; Federal Archives Koblenz R 55/21784 Abel. According to Eberhard Aleff / Walter Tormin / Friedrich Zipfel [eds.]: The Third Reich , 1973, p. 299, Schirmeister was born in 1903.
  2. ↑ a b c Willi A. Boelcke (Ed.): War Propaganda 1939–1941. , 1966, p. 52
  3. ↑ Klee, Kulturlexikon , p. 523. For SS membership see also Ralph Giordano , Allgemeine Wochenzeitung der Juden in Deutschland: Scars, traces, witnesses. 15 Years of the Allgemeine Wochenzeitung der Juden in Deutschland , 1961, p. 322.
  4. ^ Günter Moltmann : Goebbels' speech on total war on February 18, 1943 in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 1964, p. 19 ( PDF ).
  5. ^ Robert Edwin Herzstein: The War That Hitler Won. The Most Infamous Propaganda Campaign in History , 1978, p. 121.
  6. ↑ Willi A. Boelcke (Ed.): War Propaganda 1939–1941 , 1966, passim
  7. ↑ Klee, Kulturlexikon , p. 523f.
  8. ^ Rudolf Hoess / Primo Levi: Commandant of Auschwitz. The Autobiography of Rudolf Hoess , 2001, p. 252.
personal data
SURNAME Schirmeister, Moritz von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schirmeister, Moritz Augustus Konstantin von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and civil servant, senior employee of Joseph Goebbels
DATE OF BIRTH August 12, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Mulhouse in Alsace
DATE OF DEATH after 1946