Roderich Graf von Thun and Hohenstein

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Roderich Graf von Thun und Hohenstein (born January 30, 1908 in Innsbruck , † April 3, 1983 in San José , Costa Rica ) was a German lawyer and political activist. Thun became known as managing director of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Katholischer Deutscher (AKD) and as chairman of the Bund Kreuz und Adler .

biography

Roderich Graf von Thun came from the noble family of Thun and Hohenstein . He studied law .

Due to his roots in the Catholic milieu, von Thun was acquainted with the Catholic politician Franz von Papen . When Papen began preparing for the establishment of the Association of Catholic Germans (BkD) soon after his appointment as Vice Chancellor in the Hitler government in January 1933, he asked Thun to take over the office of General Secretary of this organization. The purpose of the federal government should officially be to improve the relationship between church, state and NSDAP. The organization was also based on the unspoken intention of strengthening Papen's political position by giving him another pillar and thus additional power-political support by organizing and bundling the Catholic population in an association under his patronage .

After Thun had acted as General Secretary of the BkD from April 1 to July 1, he took over the position of Executive Chairman on July 2 as Emil Ritter's successor . He kept this until the transfer of the BkD to the Bund Kreuz und Adler on October 2, 1933, in which he remained active in the same function. He caused a public sensation in January 1934 with the call to "deepen unreserved cooperation with National Socialism".

On July 2, 1934, in the course of the National Socialists' actions against their domestic political opponents, Thun was arrested by the Gestapo as a member of the "reactionary circles" in the area of ​​Papens and taken to the Gestapo's house prison on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse in Berlin. but from which he was released late that evening.

On May 1, 1937, Thun joined the NSDAP through the mediation of Rudolf Hess ( membership number 5.599.919).

After the Second World War , Thun, who had been married to Manuela Countess von Tattenbach since 1955 , lived in Costa Rica, where he worked, among other things, in development aid and as a lecturer at the Universidad Rodrigo Facio de Costa Rica .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Compare: Franz-Josef Hohenlohe-Schillingfürst: Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels enrolled in Bavaria , 1986, p. 142.
  2. ^ Ernst Klee: The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 614.
  3. ↑ Marcin Orawski: Kościoły na Śląsku 1933–1945 oraz Katharina Staritz jako przykład , 2003, p. 106.
  4. ^ Robert M. Carmack: Nuevas Perspectiva sobre el Popol , 1983, p. 379.
personal data
SURNAME Thun and Hohenstein, Count Roderich von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thun, Count Roderich von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH January 30, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH innsbruck
DATE OF DEATH April 3, 1983
Place of death San José (Costa Rica)