Ottomar Schreiber

Ottomar Schreiber , Lithuanian: Otomaras Sreiberis , (* May 1, 1889 in Marienburg ; † February 6, 1955 in Munich ) was a German politician, state president and spokesman for the East Prussian expellees.

Life and work

Schreiber grew up in Neustadt (West Prussia) , studied philosophy, history and modern linguistics in Königsberg (Prussia) and in Wroclaw and completed his training with a doctorate as a Dr. phil. After the First World War, in which he served as a soldier and was wounded twice, he became a study assessor in Danzig , Langfuhr and Oliva in 1919 .

He then worked as a publishing bookseller in Barmen and Munich , in 1922 he became in-house officer of the Memel Chamber of Commerce and (until 1932) executive chairman of the Memelland employers' association. From 1924 to 1937 he was also chairman of the supervisory board of the German-Lithuanian tobacco syndicate . From September 1944 to April 1945 he was a volunteer in the armaments trade department of the Reichsgruppe Handel in Berlin.

After the Second World War he came to Tegernsee as a displaced person and was spokesman for the East Prussian Landsmannschaft from 1948 to 1951 , and then its honorary president until his death. Together with Axel de Vries, he is considered to be responsible for the drafting of the charter of German expellees , which he signed in August 1950.

See also : Flight and expulsion of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe 1945–1950

Political party

Before the Memelland was reintegrated into the German Reich, Schreiber belonged to the Memelland People's Party , which was linked to the German People's Party .

MP

In the 1920s and 1930s, Schreiber was a member of the state parliament of Memelland, which was initially administered by the League of Nations and from 1924 was an autonomous area within Lithuania . In Memel he was involved in numerous international negotiations on the constitution of the Memelland.

Public offices

On June 6, 1932, Schreiber was elected by the state parliament as the state president (= prime minister) of the Memelland. On March 19, 1934, the Lithuanian central government deposed him and placed him under police supervision, as in their opinion he put the interests of the Memel countries of German origin above the interests of Lithuania. After the Memelland was reintegrated into the German Reich in March 1939, he was reinstated as head of government, but dismissed in 1942 because of differences with the NSDAP Gauleiter Erich Koch .

From 1949 to 1953 Schreiber was State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims .

Publications

• The personal and official data of the Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order from its founding to 1525 , in: Oberländische Geschichtsblätter , year 1913, pages 615–762.
• The anomaly of the German eastern borders , 1947.
• with Alfred Brust , Rudolf G. Binding , East Prussia. Unforgettable homeland , 1952
• Heritage and mission of the German East

Quotes

“Our fate after the expulsion will decide whether the German people are and want to remain a community of fate. ... We have not placed our future on violence. We base our future on the belief that the more the world grows together into one world, the more law must become the standard for order, and that this standard of law can only be human rights, to which the whole world has confessed and professed in the most solemn and obligatory form. "

- Ottomar Schreiber (1950)

Web links

• Literature by and about Ottomar Schreiber in the catalog of the German National Library
• Newspaper article about Ottomar Schreiber in the press kit of the 20th century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Ottomar Schreiber at the VVN-BdA

Individual evidence

1. ↑ biography
2. ↑ Ernst Weichbrodt: Self-determination for all Germans. 1920/1980. Our yes to Germany. On the 60th anniversary of the referendum in East and West Prussia on July 11, 1920 . Landsmannschaft Ostpreußen, Hamburg 1980, p. 30.