Paul Weitz (journalist)

Paul Weitz , originally Paul Weiß , (born May 29, 1862 in Ratibor , Upper Silesia, † 1939 in Berlin ) was a German journalist.

Life

Before 1918, Weitz was a correspondent for the liberal Frankfurter Zeitung in Constantinople and an employee of the daily newspaper " Ottoman Lloyd ". During a trip to the eastern parts of Turkey in the summer of 1918, he witnessed the genocide of the Armenians in Anatolia and reported internally to the responsible German authorities.

Weitz was of Jewish origin and initially worked as a businessman, then a correspondent for the British Daily News (a left-liberal daily newspaper founded by Charles Dickens in 1846 and existing until 1930) and the Vossische Zeitung in Belgrade . From 1887 he worked mainly for the Frankfurter Zeitung in Belgrade. In 1892 Weitz was expelled from Belgrade for harsh criticism of the Serbian government and for refusing to act as an informant for them. From 1896 until the end of the First World War in 1918, Weitz headed the "Frankfurter Zeitung" office in Constantinople, which was specially created for him.

Especially in the years of the so-called "second Turkish constitutional period", Weitz was excellently networked in Istanbul society, similar to his friend and colleague Dr. Friedrich Schrader , an important source of information for the official German representatives from the military and diplomacy on the Bosporus, and was thus in sharp competition with Hans Humann . The industrialist Hugo Stinnes met Paul Weitz during his trip to the Orient in 1914. Stinnes discussed oriental politics and the Orient intensively with Weitz for over four and a half hours and then remarked "The connections and activities of this strange person are amazing". Weitz was often referred to by contemporaries as the "Holstein of German policy towards the Orient" (alluding to the legendary diplomat of the Bismarckian era, Friedrich August von Holstein ).

In the years 1913 to 1917, "the baptized Jew" (interview: Lichtheim) Paul Weitz was an important contact for Richard Lichtheim , who represented the interests of the Zionist world organization in Constantinople during these years. However, in his memoirs, Lichtheim claims that Weitz denounced him to the German authorities in 1917 as an informant for the Americans, which led to his expulsion from Turkey. Lichtheim mentions that Weitz lived temporarily in the Imperial German Embassy in Constantinople (at the time of Ambassador Adolf Marschall von Bieberstein ) and that he had probably the most extensive network within Ottoman society that he maintained with the help of a detailed card index.

Like his colleague Schrader, Weitz was initially unemployed after his expulsion from Constantinople by the Allies at the end of 1918 and then worked as a consultant in the Foreign Office from September 1921 to 1931 . There is an estate in the Political Archives of the Federal Foreign Office .

"Troika" Weitz-Schrader-Kaufmann: critical solidarity with the Young Ottoman Revolution 1908/09

Weitz worked closely with the deputy editor-in-chief and founder of Ottoman Lloyd , Dr. Friedrich Schrader , who had lived in Constantinople since 1891 and was a social democrat, was friends with the Swiss journalist who worked in Istanbul from 1910 and who was then correspondent for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Max Rudolf Kaufmann . All three reported for the Frankfurter Zeitung from what was then the Ottoman capital. Schrader was known for his columnist and literary critical contributions on the then new Turkish literature and, like Kaufmann, also worked as a translator in this area.

The group of three correspondents for the Frankfurter Zeitung in Constantinople, headed by Weitz, was closely networked with the liberal wing of the Young Turkish Party, which shaped the first "Young Ottoman phase " of the second constitutional period, which also included various important personalities from the empire's non-Muslim minorities (the Armenian Turk Diran Kelekian and Lebanese Maronite Sulaiman al-Bustani ) aimed at goals such as the modernization and secularization of Turkish society, the emancipation of Turkish women ( Halide Edip as a symbolic figure of Turkish women's liberation) and the introduction of the Latin alphabet, and an important contact for German agencies and authorities in Turkey on these groups. The politics of ethnic nationalism ( Panturanism ) and the ethnic cleansing from 1912 onwards, mainly from the then naval attaché of the Embassy of Constantinople Hans Humann , a Pan-Germanic nationalist and close friend of Enver Paschas , born in Turkey as the son of the famous Pergamon excavator Carl Humann u. a. was aggressively supported by Ernst Jäckh , Friedrich Naumann , and others, the three correspondents of the Frankfurter Zeitung declined. They transmitted internal reports to German authorities on the desperate condition of the Turkish army and the impending genocide of the Armenians, but were not allowed to report anything negative about the war in the Orient due to the military censorship and the corresponding voluntary commitment of the German newspaper publishers not to report anything negative about the war in the Orient do these things. After the death of the German Ambassador Marschall von Biebersteins in 1912, who supported the activities of the Weitz-Schrader-Kaufmann Group and valued its expertise and networks, Kaufmann was released by the Ottoman Lloyd and imprisoned by the Turks in 1916 for alleged "espionage" deported to Germany. Friedrich Schrader also ran into problems in 1917 as part of a consular trial against his editor-in-chief Max Übelhör, and in 1917/18 he concentrated on archaeological and monument conservation projects in Istanbul.

Quotes

" " The culture of mankind has experienced a catastrophe in these countries, which the pen is reluctant to describe. In the course of more than three weeks we covered almost 600 kilometers, a corridor of the dead, the only one recorded in history This is because this path, which cannot be covered by an epiteton, is continued in the south against Bitlis and Van and in the east against Baiburt with the same barbaric devastation and bestial massacres. I stay away from the formulation of an indictment or defense. That is not my office A closer or more distant historiography will have to take on this task. An individual is not in a position to do this, no matter how deep he thinks he is gaining insight and is able to see much beyond other circumstances. What he has seen, however, in a sober form without any exaggeration, on the contrary, it is my duty to describe. " (From the report by Dr. Paul Weitz to the Foreign Office about his trip to Eastern Anatolia, summer 1918) "

" As soon as the early reports (about the deportations and massacres of the Armenians ...) reached Constantinople, it occurred to me that the most feasible way of stopping the outrages would be for the diplomatic representatives of all countries to make a joint appeal to the Ottoman Government. I approached Wangenheim on this subject in the latter part of March. His antipathy to the Armenians became immediately apparent. He began denouncing them in unmeasured terms; like Talaat and Enver, he affected to regard the Van episode as an unprovoked rebellion, and, in his eyes, as in theirs, the Armenians were simply traitorous vermin. "I will help the Zionists," he said, thinking that this remark would be personally pleasing to me, "but I shall do nothing whatever for the Armenians." [...] There were certain influential Germans in Constantinople who did not accept Wangenheim's point of view. I have already referred to Paul Weitz, for thirty years the correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung, who probably knew more about affairs in the Near East than any other German. Although Wangenheim constantly looked to Weitz for information, he did not always take his advice. Weitz did not accept the orthodox imperial attitude toward Armenia, for he believed that Germany's refusal effectively to intervene was doing his fatherland everlasting injury. Weitz was constantly presenting this view to Wangenheim, but he made little progress. Weitz told me about this himself, in January, 1916, a few weeks before I left Turkey. I quote his own words on this subject: "I remember that you told me at the beginning," said Weitz, "what a mistake Germany was making in the Armenian matters. I agreed with you perfectly. But when I urged this view upon Wangenheim , he threw me twice out of the room! " (US Ambassador Henry Morgenthau senior via Paul Weitz) "

Web links

• Political Archive of the Foreign Office 1918-06-20-DE-001 ( OpenDocument )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ On the antagonism of the networks of Hans Humann and Paul Weitz at the German Embassy: see Gust, p. 105 (Wolfgang Gust, ed., The Armenian Genocide: Evidence from the German Foreign Office Archives: Berghahn Books, New York, 2014, ISBN 978-1-78238-143-3 )
2. ↑ Gerald C. Feldman : Hugo Stinnes , CH Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 978-3-406-43582-9 , p. 363.
3. ^ Richard Lichtheim: Return - Memoirs from the Early Period of German Zionism: DVA, Stuttgart, 1970
4. ↑ Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945 , Vol. 5, Schöningh, Paderborn 2014, ISBN 978-3-506-71844-0
5. ↑ Max Rudolf Kaufmann: Experiences in Turkey 50 years ago. In: Journal for Cultural Exchange , Vol. 12 (1962), Issue 2/3, Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, pp. 237–241, quotation: "As an occasional employee of the" Frankfurter Zeitung "I found a friendly reception from its Constantinople representative Paul Weitz, an outstanding journalist who went in and out of Turkish ministries and was known as the informator for the German ambassador, Marschall von Bieberstein , with whom I myself very soon came into close contact [...]. "
6. ↑ Political Archive of the Foreign Office 1918-06-20-DE-001 ( OpenDocument )
7. ^ Ambassador Morgenthau's Story: Doubleday , New York 1919, pp. 438 ... 440 Wikisource