Rolf Friedemann Pauls

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Pauls with his wife Lilo (left) at the Weizmann Institute when Konrad Adenauer was awarded an honorary doctorate, 1966

Rolf Friedemann Pauls (born August 26, 1915 in Eckartsberga ; † May 4, 2002 in Bonn ) was a German officer in the Wehrmacht and diplomat . From 1965 to 1968 he was the first ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Israel .

Life

Rolf Friedemann Pauls was born in Eckartsberga in 1915 as the son of a Protestant clergyman. After graduating from high school at the Domgymnasium in Naumburg in 1934 , he became a career officer in the infantry of the Wehrmacht . Due to a serious wound that Pauls sustained as a company commander in Russia, he lost his left arm. Pauls was assigned to the military attaché in the capital of Turkey Ankara in 1942 and then completed general staff training . On February 1, 1944, he was promoted to major. In December 1944, Pauls was awarded the Knight's Cross. According to a later report by General Hans Speidel , Rolf Friedemann Pauls was privy to the plans to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944 and only escaped arrest because others remained silent. After the end of the Second World War , Pauls began studying law in 1946 , which he completed with a doctorate on the system of government of the Bonn Basic Law in 1949. Before Pauls started working as a diplomat in the diplomatic service , he worked in the Federal Chancellery , at the liaison office to the Allied High Commission and as a personal advisor to State Secretary Walter Hallstein and as Vice Consul in Luxembourg . Pauls was married twice and had two sons. Pauls and Lilo Serlo married in 1951.

Diplomatic service

Pauls (right) in conversation with Meyer Weisgal during Konrad Adenauer's visit to Israel in 1966

The establishment of diplomatic relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the State of Israel was rejected by parts of Israeli society in 1965 (only about 20 years after the Shoah ), and Paul took office as ambassador on August 19, 1965, and was accompanied by violent counter-demonstrations. Because of his past as an officer in the Wehrmacht of National Socialist Germany in World War II , where he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross , and as deputy military attaché at the German embassy in Turkey , Pauls was also considered by the Israeli public during the period of National Socialism as for deems this office inappropriate. As a first act in Israel before his accreditation by President Salman Shazar , he visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial .

Pauls was also Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United States (1968–1973), the People's Republic of China (1973–1976) and NATO (1976–1980). From 1956 to 1960 he served as counselor to the United States and from 1960 to 1963 the ambassador's representative to Greece . From 1963 to 1965 Pauls was head of the sub-department for trade and development at the headquarters of the Foreign Office in Bonn.

Honors

Publications

  • Bonn constitution and political form. Constitutional considerations taking into account materials and impressions from the negotiations of the Parliamentary Council. Dissertation, University of Hamburg, Faculty of Law and Political Science, January 17, 1951
  • The security policy challenge of the 1980s (lecture given on October 28, 1980 to members of the Düsseldorf Industry Club), Düsseldorf: Industry Club, 1980
  • The Atlantic alliance: future tasks, possibilities, threats. Bachem, Cologne 1982, ISBN 3-7616-0662-1
  • Will armaments policy save us? Security at the end of an uncertain century. Fromm, Osnabrück 1982, ISBN 3-7201-5152-2 ; 2nd edition, Edition Interfrom, Zurich 1983
  • Germany's location in the world. Observations from an ambassador. Seewald, Stuttgart and Herford 1984, ISBN 3-512-00693-0

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ´ Pauls, Rolf. In: Munzinger CD-ROM Archive 4.2: People
  2. ^ Igal Avidan: Diplomatic Relations Germany-Israel: Jubilee of a marriage of convenience. In: Deutschlandfunk Kultur. April 24, 2015, accessed December 3, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Eckart Conze, Norbert Frei, Peter Hayes and Moshe Zimmermann: The office and the past. Karl Blessing Verlag, Munich 2010, p. 500.
predecessor Office successor
--- Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Israel
1965–1968 		Karl Hermann Knoke
Karl Heinrich Knappstein Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United States
1968–1973 		Berndt from Staden
Heinrich Röhreke Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the People's Republic of China
1973–1976 		Erwin Wickert
Franz Krapf Permanent representative of the Federal Republic of Germany to NATO
1976–1980 		Hans-Georg Wieck
personal data
SURNAME Pauls, Rolf Friedemann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer in the Wehrmacht and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH August 26, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Eckartsberga
DATE OF DEATH May 4, 2002
Place of death Bonn