Otto von Strahl

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Otto von Strahl (born December 5, 1882 in Hanau , † April 8, 1961 in San Francisco ) was a German diplomat who, after leaving the Foreign Office, became a resistance fighter in South Africa and worked with the local government.

Life

Youth and education

Otto von Strahl grew up as the son of a Prussian officer, who was raised to the nobility in 1879 , and a countess from the Monts family, the diplomat Anton Graf von Monts was an uncle. After several years of private tuition, he attended high school in Hanau and graduated from high school in 1903. Then he made his military service. He then studied law at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg and the Philipps-Universität Marburg , where he passed his legal traineeship in 1907. Since 1904 he was a member of the Corps Saxo-Borussia Heidelberg . After completing his legal preparatory service, he graduated as an assessor in 1913 . His father wrote an application for the Foreign Service for him. However, his further efforts were interrupted by the First World War. There he was promoted to Rittmeister of the Reserve and acted as head of the passport and registration office of the 10th Army on the Eastern Front . He was later accused of giving preference to Polish Jews when issuing passports, but the relevant charges were later dropped and von Strahl was officially pardoned by Wilhelm II .

Professional career

On April 20, 1918, Strahl began his service as an attaché in the press department of the Foreign Office. He was deployed at headquarters and at various locations, such as Stockholm , Reichenberg and the Netherlands . He headed the consulate in Maastricht for four years . In Guatemala he met the occultist and fortune teller Lotte Plaat , for whom he left his first wife Elisabeth Lagerbielke, with whom he had two children. The two settled in Bergen and tried to come to terms with National Socialism . Among other things, Strahl spoke to Adolf Hitler personally twice . An application for membership in the NSDAP was rejected in 1934. He was then recalled to the Berlin headquarters and transferred to Durban in South Africa in 1936 .

On the basis of a denunciation, the Gestapo , the criminal police and the NSDAP staff investigated against Strahl and his wife. The foreign organization of the NSDAP also tried to remove him from his office. However, all allegations were probably grossly exaggerated and insubstantial. Nevertheless, he was removed from his post as consul in 1938 and ordered back to Berlin with a pension . He then worked for electrical and chemical companies abroad and returned to South Africa shortly afterwards with his wife.

Resistance activity

Like many of his compatriots, Von Strahl did not leave South Africa during World War II . Instead, he briefed the government of South Africa down to the smallest detail about the activities of the National Socialists and gave them extensive dossiers made up of the documents he worked on during his time as consul. He passed on the material as a so-called "White Book". He also created a “List of Dangerous Nazis” and an overview of the most important Nazi organizations under the title “Protect Your Home Country”. In 1942 he published his memoirs with a publishing house in Cape Town under the title " Seven Years As a Nazi Consul ". In the same year he was officially granted British citizenship through naturalization . It was not until 1944 that the book became known in the Third Reich . One then tried to obtain his expatriation . However, this did not succeed. However, he had already been given permanent retirement in 1943, but the money remained in a domestic account and he had no access to it.

In 1944 he published the brochure “ What Shall We Do with Nazi Germany ” in Cape Town , in which he gave suggestions on how to deal with the German Reich after its imminent surrender. He made suggestions as to how reconstruction could take place and gave suggestions on how to deal with the country in terms of foreign policy.

After the Third Reich

In 1947, Strahl and his wife moved to Hollywood , California in the United States . There he hired himself as a technical advisor for cinema films, so he was brought in for Der Fall Cicero (1951), Alt Heidelberg and Rommel, the desert fox .

From there he tried to get his old earnings from 1951 and submitted an application for redress for the injustice he had suffered, i.e. his forced retirement and the withholding of the earnings. However, this turned out to be difficult. In fact, he was deprived of both compensation and his legal money. The reason given was his alleged lack of resistance. This could be proven by a copy of the book, but this was not enough for the German authorities. Instead, he was accused of being a British citizen in the first few years when he wanted to ingratiate himself with the National Socialists. The allegations from the First World War were also emphasized again. The application was rejected, and Strahl did not have the financial means to initiate another lawsuit. Ray sold his remaining property in Germany and became an American citizen. He spent his retirement years largely penniless in San Francisco, where he died on April 8, 1961.

Late appreciation

Otto von Strahl was forgotten for many years until Martin Kröger presented his biography in the anthology Resistance and Foreign Office: Diplomats against Hitler to a larger audience. In his essay he paints the picture of a diplomat who was wrongly played along. He ended his biography with the following words:

“But as in the case of Fritz Kolbe , it spoke against Otto von Strahl that he had not simply remained a politically passive emigrant, but, on the contrary, had acted actively against the German Reich. (...) Otto von Strahl received nothing. And he was forgotten. "

- Martin Kröger : Resistance and reparation, p. 69

Fonts

  • Seven Years As a Nazi Consul . Cape Town: Ridout & Co 1942.
  • What Shall We Do with Nazi Germany? . Cape Town: Makew Miller 1944.

literature

  • Martin Kröger: Resistance and reparation: the sad case of Otto von Strahl . In: Ian Erik Schulte / Michael Wala (ed.): Resistance and the Foreign Office: Diplomats against Hitler . Siedler, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-8275-0015-1 , p. 51-69 .
  • Johannes Hürter (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 4: Bernd Isphording, Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: S Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-71843-3 , p. 383f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Kröger: Resistance and reparation: The sad case of Otto von Strahl . In: Ian Erik Schulte / Michael Wala (ed.): Resistance and the Foreign Office: Diplomats against Hitler . Siedler, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-8275-0015-1 , p. 53 f .
  2. ↑ Martin Kröger: Resistance and reparation: The sad case of Otto von Strahl . Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-8275-0015-1 , pp. 54 f .
  3. ↑ Martin Kröger: Resistance and reparation: The sad case of Otto von Strahl . Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-8275-0015-1 , pp. 56 .
  4. ↑ Martin Kröger: Resistance and reparation: The sad case of Otto von Strahl . Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-8275-0015-1 , pp. 58 f .
  5. ↑ Martin Kröger: Resistance and reparation: The sad case of Otto von Strahl . Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-8275-0015-1 , pp. 62 f .
  6. ↑ Otto von Strahl in the Internet Movie Database (English)Template: IMDb / Maintenance / Unnecessary use of parameter 2
  7. ↑ Martin Kröger: Resistance and reparation: The sad case of Otto von Strahl . Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-8275-0015-1 , pp. 66 f .
personal data
SURNAME Strahl, Otto von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH December 5, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanau
DATE OF DEATH April 8, 1961
Place of death San Francisco