Otto Carl Quiver

Otto Köcher (born January 15, 1884 in Sankt Ludwig , Reichsland Alsace-Lorraine , † December 27, 1945 in Ludwigsburg ) was a German diplomat.

Life

The son of a Swiss woman, Köcher grew up in Basel . He began to study law at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität and became active in the Corps Saxonia Bonn in 1902 . When he was inactive , he moved to the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg and the Friedrich Wilhelms University of Berlin . In 1906 he was promoted to Dr. iur. PhD.

From March 31, 1912 he was in the service of the Foreign Office . In 1913/14 he was Vice Consul in Naples. During the First World War he was a reserve officer (Rittmeister) in the army, but entrusted with diplomatic-military missions. After the end of the war, Köcher was vice consul at the German consulate in St. Gallen; In 1918 he moved to the embassy in Bern . He was a delegation counselor, later first deputy to the envoy Adolf Gustav Müller . In 1923 he was appointed Legation Councilor 1st class and appointed to the Berlin Foreign Office. From 1924 to 1930 he worked in the embassy in Mexico , then lecturer in the Foreign Office. From 1933 to 1937 he was German Consul General in Barcelona .

From April 30, 1937, Köcher succeeded Ernst Freiherr von Weizsäcker and envoy of the German Empire in Bern for Switzerland (and the Principality of Liechtenstein). He left the post on April 30, 1945 and was arrested on July 31, 1945 when he was crossing the border by the American occupying forces because of his National Socialist attitude. In addition, he was accused of having stolen gold from the German legation at the end of the war. He was interned in a prison camp in Ludwigsburg and committed suicide on December 27, 1945.

The person quiver was controversial in Switzerland during the time of National Socialism; he had been a member of the NSDAP since 1934 . As a diplomat with close ties to Switzerland, on the one hand he was welcome in Switzerland, on the other hand, as an avowed National Socialist, he maintained close contacts with Federal Councilor Eduard von Steiger and other Swiss citizens. As early as 1940 he met the Italian envoy Tamaro on a diplomatic mission to negotiate the division of Switzerland. In 1941, Köcher took part in an intrigue by corps commander Ulrich Wille junior to replace the incumbent General Henri Guisan , commander in chief of the Swiss Army .

literature

• Tobias C. Bringmann: Handbuch der Diplomatie, 1815–1963: Foreign Mission Heads in Germany, Walter de Gruyter 2001

Web links

• Documents by and about Köcher, Otto in the Dodis database of Diplomatic Documents in Switzerland

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 13 , 425
2. ↑ Dissertation: A contribution to the question of the "animal keeper" (§ 833 BGB): Can several people be animal keepers with regard to the same animal?
3. ^ ^{A b c d e} Stephan Schwarz: Ernst Freiherr von Weizsäcker's relations with Switzerland (1933–1945). A contribution to the history of diplomacy , Peter Lang 2007, p. 349 ff.
4. ^ Wulff Bickenbach: Justice for Paul Grüninger: sentencing and rehabilitation of a Swiss escape helper (1938-1998) , Böhlau Verlag Köln Weimar 2009, page 67
5. ↑ Stefan Mächler: Help and Powerlessness: the Swiss Association of Israelites and the National Socialist Persecution 1933-1945 , Chronos 2005, p. 48
6. ↑ Hitler does not want occupied Switzerland - Guisan's order to the population to return to their places of residence - Italy's policy of "terra irredenta" against Switzerland - plans for the division of the envoy Köcher and Tamaro - split Swiss army officers , accessed on October 6, 2013
7. ↑ Thomas Huonker: A dark spot in "Remember what is running. Racism in focus", edited by Sabina Brändli, Myriam Eser Davolio and Karl Kistler in Pestalozzianum Publishing House, Zurich, 2009, pp. 167–174. (PDF; 586 kB), accessed on October 6, 2013

predecessor	Office	successor
Ernst Freiherr von Weizsäcker	Envoy of the German Reich in Bern 1919–1933	-