Paul of Buri

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Paul Friedrich Christian von Buri (born June 1, 1860 in Gießen ; † August 7, 1922 in Seeheim-Jugenheim ) was a diplomat of the German Reich and head of the Central Office for Foreign Service at the Foreign Office.

family

Paul von Buri was the son of the judge Maximilian von Buri and his wife Maria, geb. by Ernest (1830-1910). The von Buri family was ennobled in 1753 by Landgrave Ludwig VIII of Hesse-Darmstadt . In 1896 he married Charlotte von Bomhard (1871–1964) in Leipzig , the daughter of the President of the Senate of the Reichsgericht Ernst von Bomhard .

Professional career

After graduating from high school, von Paul von Buri studied law at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg , the University of Strasbourg and the University of Leipzig . He began his professional career in 1881 at the Foreign Office in Berlin in the “Department for German and Overseas Affairs”. Here he was employed in the area of ​​a district official in the Protectorate of the Marshall Islands , which was then part of German New Guinea . In 1886 he became German Vice Consul in Zanzibar, UK . He was then employed as the German consul of the Cape Colony in Cape Town, South Africa, and the Transvaal Colony in Pretoria , where he was tasked with representing German politics in order to guarantee the economic and constitutional interests of the German population living in the areas concerned.

In 1895 Paul von Buri returned to Germany and was appointed advisor to the Foreign Office for the newly created colonial department. As part of this activity in 1899, he accompanied the negotiations to settle the open questions about the Samoan Islands , which were conducted by a commission appointed by the German side in May 1899 under the direction of the diplomat Hermann Speck von Sternburg . As a result of these negotiations, a tripartite agreement was reached in which the procedure for the division and administration of the archipelago between the USA and Germany was agreed. After the conclusion of the Apia contract , Buri became German consul general in Basel . On April 13, 1900, he took over the German consulate general in Australia , based in Sydney . He was jointly responsible for New Zealand and the Fitschi Islands . At the beginning of the Australian Federation he represented the German Kaiser Wilhelm II at the opening of the Australian Parliament on May 9, 1901 .

On August 9, 1906, he became consul in Shanghai . Von Buri was thus responsible for the interests of German nationals in the international settlement and the surrounding areas around Shanghai. At the same time, he also represented Germany's economic interests on site vis-à-vis the regional authorities, because Shanghai had already developed into an important trading center between Asia and Europe at that time. In February 1913 he was appointed envoy of the German mission in Bangkok . Although his period of service there was given until 1917, he probably returned to Germany earlier, because he was back in Berlin from July 1916 at the latest.

In July 1916, Paul von Buri was appointed head of department of the Central Office for Foreign Service (ZfA) in the Foreign Office , which was responsible for the organization of foreign propaganda and cooperation with the foreign press. The tasks of this office, created in October 1914, consisted of the publication of a multilingual dispatch service intended for foreign newspapers , the printing of brochures, books and articles about foreign publishers to portray German culture and "love of peace", and the establishment or takeover of newspapers for certain foreign population groups, in the monthly publication of a multilingual war chronicle and in the production of posters and leaflets for the population of the occupied territories. The headquarters of the central office was in the former premises of the Berlin “Central Office for Print Propaganda of the Reichsmarineamte”, which was absorbed into the ZfA. During the implementation of the very difficult subject areas, especially during the state of war , it became clear that the gathering and distribution of news abroad was difficult to separate from the intelligence work. By 1917 the Central Office for Foreign Service was restructured and centralized several times, but it was always in competition with the private news organizations and with Department IIIb of the General Staff . Erich Ludendorff harbored particular distrust of the central office , as it was not headed by an officer. At his instigation, the ZfA was dissolved as an independent department at the end of 1917 and assigned to the communications department of the Foreign Office, which was headed by Major Erhard Deutelmoser . In August 1917, von Buri was released from his position as head of the central office. Regardless of this situation, which arose from the pressure of military circles on the Foreign Office, von Buri continued to work, now unofficially, for Department IV News in the Office.

Paul von Buri died on August 7, 1922 in Seeheim-Jugenheim.

Web links

• Short biography of Paul von Buri , Hessian biographies , regional history information system

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Paul Wendtzcke: Christian Karl Friedrich (Grandfather). In: New German Biography. Berlin 1957; and brief biographical data of Paul von Buri and Maximilian Georg von Buri (father) in: Hessische Biografien. State historical information system of Hesse
2. ^ The Reich Colonial Office had only existed as a central authority since 1907 (decree of May 17, 1907). This department cooperated very closely with the Reichsgericht in Leipzig, as this was responsible for the jurisdiction, the filling and guidance of the personnel of the civil authorities in the German "protected areas", which were directly subordinate to the governor of the respective colony. See: German Colonial Dictionary. 1920 Volume III, p. 214  
3. ↑ This department was set up on April 1, 1890 by order of the Reich Chancellor and was directly subordinate to the State Secretary of the Foreign Office
4. ↑ Kurt Hassert: The new German acquisitions in the South Seas . The Karolin, Marian and Samoa Islands - The contract between Germany, England and the USA was signed on November 14, 1899 (England waived its rights in relation to the Samoa Islands in the course of further severance payments)
5. ↑ Tobias Bringmann: Handbook of Diplomacy 1815-1963. Munich 2001. (Buri's tenure in Sydney was from 1901 to 1906.)
6. ↑ Tobias Bringmann: Handbuch der Diplomatie 1815-1963. Munich 2001, p. 79. (Here the period in the buri “German Mission Chief” was given from 1913 to July 27, 1917.)
7. ^ Harry Graf Kessler : The diary 1880-1937. Fifth volume. Klett Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart 2008.
8. ^ Fritz Fischer, German War Aims, Revolutionization and Separate Peace, 1959
9. ^ Wolfgang Ruge : Matthias Erzberger - a political biography. Berlin 1976.
10. ↑ Formed in October 1916 as Department IV of the Foreign Office (news department)
11. ^ Hürter, Kröger, Messerschmidt, Scheidemann, Biographical Handbook of the Foreign Office, 1871–1945, Volume 1 AD, Schöningh Verlag Paderborn / Vienna 2000

predecessor	Office	successor
Peter Kempermann	Envoy of the German Empire in Sydney April 13, 1901–9. August 1906	Georg Irmer
Wilhelm Knappe	Envoy of the German Reich in Shanghai August 9, 1906 – February 1913	Hubert Knipping
Konrad von der Goltz	Envoy of the German Reich in Bangkok February 1913- August 1914	Relationships suspended because of the state of war