Niels Christian Ditleff

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Niels Christian Ditleff

Niels Christian Ditleff (born October 29, 1881 in Larvik , Norway , † June 18, 1956 ) was a Norwegian diplomat . During the German invasion of Poland in 1939 he was involved in the evacuation of foreign diplomats from Warsaw and in 1945 co-initiator of the rescue operation of the White Buses to free Scandinavian prisoners from German concentration camps .

history

Ditleff was born in the Norwegian port city of Larvik . He completed a seaman's training and left the Norwegian Naval Academy as a lieutenant. He then embarked on a diplomatic career. From 1903 to 1906 he was posted to the Norwegian Consulate General in Le Havre . Between 1920 and 1926 he was Vice Consul and Chargé d'Affaires in Havana , Bilbao and Lisbon . From 1926 he was stationed in Warsaw, where he was promoted to ambassador in 1930.

Evacuation from Warsaw

In the spring of 1939, Ditleff set up a transit station in Warsaw for Jewish refugees from Czechoslovakia and made sure that the refugees received food, clothing and transport to Gdynia , from where they went on ships to Norway.

When the German armed forces approached Warsaw in September 1939, he tried early to contact German military authorities to arrange for an orderly evacuation of diplomats and relatives. He was able to negotiate a four-hour truce to organize the evacuation of around 1,200 people.

The white buses

Ditleff was in Norway when German soldiers occupied Norway. He fled to Sweden and joined the Norwegian legation here. He campaigned for an active effort to save Norwegian and Danish citizens in German concentration camps and in November 1944 proposed a plan for the Swedish operation of the white buses . He received the necessary information. a. from a group in Groß Kreutz .

The Norwegian Wanda Heger (née Hjort) came to the Groß Kreutz estate, a property of her relatives, as a civil internee . The former rector of the University of Oslo Didrik Arup Seip was also interned here on the basis of intercession after spending time in prison in Norway and Berlin. They worked together with the Norwegian seaman's pastors Arne Berge and Conrad Vogt-Svendsen from Hamburg, who visited prisoners in prisons and concentration camps and brought them food and letters from their families in Norway and Denmark. Together with other Scandinavians, the group in Groß Kreutz has compiled extensive lists of prisoners and their locations. The lists were sent to the Norwegian government-in-exile in London by the Swedish embassy in Berlin.

In agreement with Sweden's Foreign Minister, Ditleff proposed the Vice-President of the Swedish Red Cross, Folke Bernadotte, to negotiate with German authorities and carry out the action. Himmler 's personal physician Felix Kersten served as contact for Heinrich Himmler . With his mediation, Bernadotte and Himmler met several times in the Hohenlychen sanatorium , and Bernadotte was able to achieve the release of around 20,000 prisoners. In return, Himmler was promised that Bernadotte would broker talks about a separate peace with the Western Allies.

Schedule

  • 1940 August: The first Norwegian political prisoners are deported to Germany.
  • 1942 October: Johan Bernhard Hjort's family, interned at Groß Kreutz Castle, begins to support the prisoners.
  • 1943 September: The Danish coalition government resigns; Danish prisoners are brought to Germany.
  • 1944 January: Ditleff establishes contact with the group in Groß Kreutz.
  • 1944 September: Ditleff meets Bernadotte and proposes a Swedish expedition to rescue Scandinavian prisoners.
  • 1944 December: The Norwegian government-in-exile in London asks the embassy in Stockholm for a Swedish expedition to rescue prisoners in Germany.
  • 1945 February 16: Bernadotte travels to Berlin by plane, meets with Himmler, among others, and negotiates the release of political prisoners, initially arrives at the Neuengamme collection with his own vehicles and supplies (petrol, provisions).
  • 1945 March 12th: The white buses reach Friedrichsruh , the base in Germany.
  • 1945 March 15: The first transport of the white buses from Sachsenhausen to Neuengamme; 2,200 Norwegians and Danes are collected.
  • 1945 March 19: The first transport of the white buses collects prisoners in southern Germany; 559 prisoners are transported to Neuengamme.
  • 1945 March 26th: The first transport of Swedish women to Sweden.
  • 1945 March 27th: French, Belgian, Dutch, Polish and Russian prisoners are transported from Neuengamme in white buses to make room for more Scandinavian prisoners.
  • 1945 March 29th: The Swedish Red Cross gains access to Neuengamme concentration camp.
  • 1945 March 30th: Transport of the white buses from the area around Leipzig; 1,200 prisoners are collected, 1,000 of them Danish police officers, and all are transported to Denmark.
  • 1945 April 2: A new Swedish column of white buses in southern Germany visiting the camps in Mauthausen , Dachau and Vaihingen ; 75 prisoners are collected in Neuengamme.
  • 1945 April 5: About half of the Swedish contingent of white buses returns to Sweden; They will be replaced by Danes.
  • 1945 April 8th: The first transport of white buses from the Ravensbrück concentration camp ; 100 female prisoners are transported directly to the quarantine at the Frøslev Padborg internment camp in Denmark.
  • 1945 April 8th: The first air raid on the white buses takes place in the Danish camp in Friedrichsruh, four Danish drivers and a nurse are slightly injured.
  • 1945 April 9th: A Swedish-Danish column travels to Berlin to collect political prisoners from prisons; 211 prisoners are transported to Neuengamme. The evacuation of sick prisoners to Denmark begins.
  • 1945 April 15: A total of 524 political prisoners from prisons in Mecklenburg are collected with the white buses; 423 Jews are transported from Theresienstadt concentration camp to Denmark and Sweden by Swedish buses .
  • 1945 April 20: The evacuation of all Scandinavian prisoners from Neuengamme to Sweden by 123 Danish buses, 30 ambulances and 18 trucks begins. The transport of sick prisoners from the Ravensbrück concentration camp; 786 and 360 female prisoners in two columns are brought to Padborg.
  • 1945 April 30th: Magdalena with 223 prisoners and Lillie Matthiessen with 225 prisoners leave Lübeck.
  • 1945 May 2nd: 2000 female prisoners (960 Jews, 790 Poles and 250 French) arrive in Padborg by train.
  • 1945 May 3: Cap Arcona , a German passenger ship full of prisoners from Neuengamme, is attacked by the Royal Air Force . Almost all 7,500 prisoners on board the ship die.
  • 1945 May 4th: The last transport with rescued political prisoners by ferry from occupied Copenhagen, Denmark to Malmö, Sweden.

After the Second World War

From 1945 to 1950 Ditleff worked as the Norwegian ambassador to Finland , after which he retired.

He and his wife died in a car accident.

Honors

Ditleff has received numerous awards for his services:

literature

  • Henrik Skov Kristensen: The “White Buses” from the perspective of North Schleswig. The Swedish-Danish rescue operation for concentration camp prisoners in the spring of 1945 , in: Grenzfriedensheft 1/2016, p. 23 ff.
  • Bernhard Strebel: The Ravensbrück concentration camp. History of a camp complex (Diss. 2001). Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2003, ISBN 3-506-70123-1 .
  • Heinz Schön: The Cap Arcona disaster. Documentation based on eyewitness reports , Stuttgart 1989.
  • Katharina Hertz-Eichenrode (ed.): A concentration camp is being cleared. Prisoners between extermination and liberation , 2 volumes, Bremen 2000.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Ditleff, Niels Christian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Norwegian diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH October 29, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Larvik , Norway
DATE OF DEATH June 18, 1956