Norbert von Baumbach

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Norbert von Baumbach (born February 8, 1900 in Gelnhausen , † February 27, 1977 in Amönau near Marburg) was a German naval officer who worked as an intelligence officer , naval attaché and head of the naval intelligence service .

Live and act

Norbert von Baumbach was born as the son of the district administrator and district president Philipp Freiherr von Baumbach (1860-1911) and his wife Clara, née Laffert (1876-1937), in Gelnhausen, on the edge of the Rhine-Main area. After graduating from high school, he joined the imperial navy , underwent basic and basic training for naval officers and in the early 1920s he achieved the rank of first lieutenant at sea . In 1922 he was assigned to the Reichswehr Ministry and took up a job in the news office (N), which works directly for the naval office. His superior was Corvette Captain Reinhold Gadow (1882-1949). The press office of the Admiralty's staff, which was dissolved in 1919, and the news office of the Reichsmarineamte were absorbed into this organizational area . The tasks of the intelligence center consisted in the procurement of important, militarily valuable information about the facilities, the material, the technology, the personnel, the logistics of the enemy navies through observation, contacts, radio and press evaluation. In addition, own press releases and publications were issued. In 1923 the book “Ruhmestage der Deutschen Marine - Bilddokumentation des Maritime Warfare” was published by Melchior Verlag. The author was Norbert von Baumbach. In 1924, with the departure of the Chief of the Naval Office, Admiral Paul Behncke (1866–1937), the work was restructured and in some cases reoriented. Corvette Captain Walter Matthiae (1880–1960) became the new head of the intelligence agency. From this point on, the intelligence center (N) was also involved in secret armaments projects of the naval command together with the maritime transport department. This particularly concerned the secret military cooperation with Turkey, Spain, Japan and the Soviet Union. In mid-1927 there was further restructuring in the Baumbach work area, which was mainly due to the discovery of the machinations of the head of the sea transport department Walter Lohmann (1878–1930). Entrusted with the same tasks, von Baumbach switched to the Wehrmacht Department of the Reichswehr Ministry in 1928. In the same year he was promoted to lieutenant captain and remained in the department until the end of 1932, but was already more involved in work tasks in the direction of eastern European countries.

In the Soviet Union

With the end of the previous special role in the cooperation between the Reichswehr and the Red Army in 1932/33, the staffing of military specialists at the German embassy in Moscow was strengthened again. Therefore, Baumbach's command as naval advisor took place on October 1, 1933 at the embassy . He was soon promoted to frigate captain. German ambassador in Moscow was Rudolf Nadolny (1873–1953) from 1933 , and thus his direct superior. At the side of the military attaché Otto Hartmann (1884–1952), who also worked at the embassy from 1933, von Baumbach familiarized himself with the tasks of obtaining maritime information and establishing contacts on site. This phase was overshadowed by the change of ambassador in mid-1934. After Nadolny's departure, Count Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg (1878–1944) became the new ambassador on June 21, 1934 . From that year, the Red Army belonged to the "Foreign Armies " with regard to the reports by the attachés. When Baumbach's assignment as naval advisor came to an end on December 31, 1936, he was officially notified as a naval attaché in Moscow on January 1, 1937. From 1938 he was involved together with the current military attaché Ernst-August Köstring (1876-1953) in the planning and informal work steps in preparation for the German-Soviet non-aggression treaty. On the days of his graduation by the two foreign ministers in Moscow on August 23 and 24, 1939, von Baumbach was among the members of the German delegation.

The day before, a joint military agreement had been signed by Ernst Köstring and People's Commissar Kliment Voroshilov (1881–1969) as a result of the work of the German-Soviet military commission to regulate further military cooperation between the two countries. The points it contained raised hopes of long-term military cooperation among the attachés. Immediately afterwards, both of them increased their auxiliary staff very quickly. Preliminary talks on joint naval armament and the conversion of civilian German ships into warships in Soviet shipyards were prepared and took place. Considerations of joint engine and weapon production were examined. As a result of various initiatives by Baumbach, in coordination with the chief of the Navy, the first serious results were achieved. This concerned, for example, joint steps to build a secret naval base in the North Sea. A first suggestion was to use parts of the Soviet seaport of Murmansk . The long-term plan to build a secret naval base in the region for the German Navy , which Hitler had already agreed to shortly after the German invasion of Poland , was the subject of activities. In this context, however, it was also necessary to find ostensible solutions for the six German ships, including the “Bremen”, which had to make a “stopover” in Murmansk since the beginning of September 1939 due to the war. Von Baumbach stayed on site several times to get an idea of ​​the specific situation. When the Soviet government rejected this plan for “reasons of secrecy” and offered the use of the “Sapadnaja Liza” bay to the west as a counter-proposal, the “ Base North ” was established here. Within a few days, the first transports of material and equipment from Germany to Arctic Ocean on the way. Concrete development steps for the construction of a larger supply base for the war fleet, for the construction of port and shipyard facilities were tackled on the island. Small repair units took care of repairing damage to the ships stationed there on site. The base was then actually used in the following year as part of the preparation of the navy for the attack on Norway. However, since such cooperation was not politically wanted and from that point on no longer fit into the concept of the “Barbarossa” company , “Basis Nord” was dissolved again at the end of 1940. During this time, von Baumbach was promoted to sea captain. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the German embassy in Moscow was closed.

Back in Germany

Baumbach returned to Germany in the summer of 1941. From July 1942, he succeeded Gottfried Krüger as head of the news evaluation department (3 / Skl). He headed this area of ​​work until June 28, 1944.

Nothing is currently known about Baumbach's whereabouts and his professional activity after 1945. He died on February 27, 1977 in Amönau and was buried there in the cemetery of the community of Amönau near Marburg.

Fonts

  • Glory days of the German Navy . Melchior Verlag, 1923

literature

  • Olaf Groehler : Suicidal alliance. German-Russian military relations 1920–1940, Visa Verlag Berlin 1992
  • Hans Hildebrand: Formation history and staffing of the German armed forces 1915-1945, Volume 2 (Navy), Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 2000
  • Manfred Kehring: The re-establishment of the German military attaché service after the First World War (1919–1933), Harald Boldt Verlag Boppard am Rhein, 1966
  • Michael Salewski: The Germans and the Sea - Part II, Franz Stier Verlag Stuttgart 2002
  • Hermann Teske (Ed.): General Ernst Köstring. The military mediator between the German Reich and the Soviet Union 1921–1941, Verlag ES Mittler & Sohn GmbH, Frankfurt / Main 1965
  • Ranking lists of the Navy, Verlag Siegfried Mittler & Sohn, Kiel, born between 1920 and 1936

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The book was reprinted several times in the following years, most recently in 1933, when it was published in an edition of 5,000 copies in the Broschek & Co. publishing house in Hamburg
  2. ↑ Hans Hildebrand, formation history and staffing of the German armed forces 1915–1945, volume 2 (marine), Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 2000, p. 35ff.
  3. ↑ Rankings of the Navy, Verlag Siegfried Mittler & Sohn, Kiel, years 1920 to 1936
  4. ^ Olaf Gröhler, Suicidal Alliance. German-Russian military relations 1920–1940, Visa Verlag Berlin 1992, pp. 65ff.
  5. ↑ Reichswehr Minister Werner von Blomberg had arranged for the Red Army to be added to the list of potential opponents from the list of friendly armies. in: Claudia Weber, Der Pakt, Stalin, Hitler and the story of a murderous alliance 1939–1941, CHBeck Verlag, Munich 2019, p. 31f.
  6. ↑ Manfred Kehring, The re-establishment of the German military attaché service after the First World War (1919–1933), Harald Boldt Verlag Boppard am Rhein, 1966, pp. 202ff.
  7. ↑ Hermann Teske (ed.) General Ernst Köstring. The military mediator between the German Reich and the Soviet Union 1921–1941, Verlag ES Mittler & Sohn GmbH, Frankfurt / Main 1965, pp. 79ff.
  8. ↑ Michael Salewski, The Germans and the Sea - Part II, Franz Stier Verlag Stuttgart 2002
  9. ↑ Hans Hildebrand, Formation History and Staffing of the German Armed Forces 1915–1945, Volume 2 (Navy), Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 2000
personal data
SURNAME Baumbach, Norbert von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German naval officer
DATE OF BIRTH February 8, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Gelnhausen
DATE OF DEATH February 27, 1977
Place of death Amonau