Roland mug by Nidda

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Roland Hans Krug von Nidda (born August 20, 1895 in Dresden ; died May 4, 1968 in Munich ) was a German officer , lawyer , diplomat and journalist . From 1933 he was a correspondent for the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung in Paris and from 1941 to 1943 head of the branch of the German Embassy in Vichy. After the war he worked as a writer and translator .

Life

He comes from the Hessian noble family Krug von Nidda and was the son of the Rittmeister and wing adjutant of the last Saxon king, Hans Krug von Nidda . His father was promoted to general of the cavalry during the First World War .

Krug von Nidda attended the humanistic Thomas School in Leipzig until he graduated from high school in 1914 . He then began studying law at the University of Leipzig .

In 1913 he became a lieutenant . During the First World War he served as an orderly officer in the staff of the 192nd Division (8th Royal Saxon) , was promoted to first lieutenant and for his services a. a. Awarded the Knight's Cross of the Military Order of St. Henry and the Knight's Cross II Class of the Albrecht Order with Swords.

After the armistice and his demobilization , Krug von Nidda finished his law studies in 1920 and was promoted to Dr. jur. PhD. On August 11, 1920, he entered the service of the Foreign Service and from 1922 was employed by the "Representative of the Foreign Office at the Reich Commissioner for the Occupied Rhenish Territories" Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff in Koblenz . He also worked at the German Embassy in Belgrade . He resigned from civil service in 1924. Until 1931 he was co-owner of the manor Gersdorf bei Görlitz, which had been in the family since 1810.

From 1933 he was a correspondent for the conservative Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (DAZ) in Paris and from 1935 chairman of the German Association of Journalists. He also worked in Hamburg, London, Moscow, Vienna and Zurich. On May 1, 1933, he joined the NSDAP . Since March 13, 1933 he was a member of the SA , where he was appointed Sturmbannführer in 1942 and Obersturmbannführer in 1944. Krug von Nidda was a member of the German men's club . In 1944 he was awarded the War Merit Cross, First Class, for his services to National Socialism .

At the beginning of 1940 he returned to the Foreign Service and was appointed consul general , envoy in 1943 , and in November 1941 head of the branch of the German embassy at the Vichy government in Vichy . From 1942 the Jews were deported from France to the Auschwitz concentration camp , in which the Vichy government and the German embassy under Otto Abetz worked together. Krug von Nidda reported at the beginning of 1942 that after conversations with François Darlan he had the impression that the French government would be happy if it got rid of the Jews in any way, and suggested to Carltheo Zeitschel and the SS to the Commissioner for Jews in the Paris embassy Leader Theodor Dannecker that one could propose to the Vichy government that 1,000 to 5,000 Jews should be transported away every month. Krug von Nidda was transferred to Berlin in 1943 by Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop , where he was chairman of the “Flemish-Walloon Committee” of the Foreign Office in a political subdivision. He established contacts with the International Red Cross in Geneva in order to alleviate the prison conditions for political prisoners in France and to obtain their release.

From September 1945 to December 12, 1947, Krug von Nidda was in French custody. Nothing is known about its denazification . He then lived as a freelance writer (pseudonym Ray Castres) and translator from French, Dutch and English. His publication of the notes of Anastasia Romanova , the youngest daughter of the last Russian tsar, met with worldwide interest and was translated into many languages, as pretenders had also appeared in the 1950s .

Works (selection)

  • Marianne 39 . Frundsberg-Verlag, Berlin 1939.
  • Pleins pouvoirs? France's fear of secondary importance . Frundsberg-Verlag, Berlin 1939 (with Jean Giraudoux ).
  • French elegy . Rütten & Loening, Potsdam 1941.
  • I, Anastasia, tell you. Records and documents of the Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia . Scheffler, Frankfurt a. M. 1957.
  • Henry Dunant. Genius of humanity . Wunderlich, Tübingen 1959.
  • Eugene of Savoy. An independent conscience . Amalthea Verlag, Vienna / Munich / Zurich 1963.
  • The way to Sarajevo. Franz Ferdinand . Amalthea Verlag, Vienna / Munich / Zurich 1964.
  • 1966. Königgrätz. Two views of Germany . Amalthea Verlag, Vienna / Munich / Zurich, 1966.
  • 1848. Between the revolutions. The struggle of the Paulskirchenparliament for German unity . Amalthea Verlag, Vienna / Munich / Zurich, 1966.

literature

  • Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 2: Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: G – K. Schöningh, Paderborn u. a. 2005, ISBN 3-506-71841-X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gottlieb Tesmer, Walther Müller: Honor roll of the Thomas School in Leipzig. The teachers and high school graduates of the Thomas School in Leipzig 1912–1932. Commissioned by the Thomanerbund, self-published, Leipzig 1934, p. 23.
  2. ↑ Georg Richter: The Royal Saxon Military-St. Heinrichs Order 1736-1918. An honor sheet of the Saxon Army. Wilhelm and Bertha von Baensch Foundation, Dresden 1937, p. 402.
  3. ↑ Michael Mayer : States as perpetrators. Ministerial bureaucracy and “Jewish policy” in Nazi Germany and Vichy France. A comparison , Oldenbourg, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-486-58945-0 , p. 277
  4. ↑ Ahlrich Meyer : perpetrators in interrogation. The “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” in France 1940–1944 , Darmstadt 2005, ISBN 3-534-17564-6 , p. 107
personal data
SURNAME Jug from Nidda, Roland
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Krug von Nidda, Roland Hans (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH August 20, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH 4th May 1968
Place of death Munich