Sigismund of Bibra

Sigismund von Bibra (born June 3, 1894 in Oberems ; † October 7, 1973 in Irmelshausen , municipality of Höchheim ) was a German diplomat during the Nazi era and a senior functionary of the NSDAP's foreign organization .

Life

Hans-Sigismund Freiherr von Bibra was the son of the forester Karl von Bibra and Paula von Goedekingk. After attending the grammar school in Quedlinburg , the upper secondary school in Ballenstedt and the Fridericianum Davos , he became a soldier in the First World War in August 1914 and achieved the rank of first lieutenant . In the spring of 1918 he was taken prisoner by the French. From 1918 to 1922 he studied law and political science in Berlin and Würzburg . In 1922 he received his doctorate as Dr. rer. pole. and joined the Foreign Service. His first assignment was in the Reich Chancellery , where on January 3, 1923 he became the personal advisor to Reich Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno . After training stations in Wilhelmstrasse and in Rio de Janeiro , he was employed at the embassy in Prague from 1931 . He was a member of the DNVP and joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1933 . In the Prague foreign organization of the NSDAP he rose to the position of district leader, senior division leader and local group leader.

After the transfer of power to the National Socialists in the German Reich in January 1933, Bibra was active in Prague on the one hand in combating the political organization of the German refugees. From the Gestapo spy Max Goldemann, a German refugee and employee in Kurt Grossmann's refugee aid, he received a card index of German emigrants . On the other hand, Bibra was involved in an illegal campaign by the German ambassador Walter Koch to financially support the National Socialists in the ČSR when the German National Socialist Workers' Party had to disband there in October 1933 after threatening to ban it.

Switzerland

Because of his probation in the party offices he was transferred to the German embassy in Bern on June 30, 1936 , where Ernst von Weizsäcker was the German envoy. Until the war began, as the Counselor Theodor Kordt had to leave his post in London and came to Bern, Bibra was second in the Embassy and the chargé d'affaires in the absence of the ambassador.

In Switzerland, on February 4, 1936 , the Jewish student David Frankfurter shot the NSDAP / AO regional group leader Wilhelm Gustloff in his apartment in Davos . Bibra now took over his leadership role in the party, but was confronted with the fact that after Gustloff's murder, the Swiss government had banned the state group leadership and district leadership on February 18, 1936, even if the NSDAP membership of the German citizens who were in in Switzerland. Under the protection of his diplomatic immunity, Bibra continued Gustloff's work under the eyes of Swiss politicians, organized other (now illegal) Nazi organizations and increased the number of Germans abroad joining the party by threatening them with the revocation of their citizenship. Initially, however, he was busy coordinating the German activities in the Gustloff murder trial, which the German Foreign Ministry did not want to leave Weizsäcker alone. Since Weizsäcker had additional tasks in the political department of the Foreign Office in Berlin, which were later credited to him when he made his career jump to State Secretary, he also had to coordinate with Bibra by telex. For example, after Wolfgang Diewerge had announced the political line already agreed between the Propaganda Ministry and the Foreign Minister in Berlin , he recommended a procedurally clever approach against Judaism, which the German side was to portray as the mastermind and commissioner of the murder. Weizsäcker saw better opportunities for propaganda against the Jews if the co-plaintiff, Friedrich Grimm, waited in the course of the proceedings: "There is certainly still a wide field for the needs of combating the Jews, especially after the trial."

When Weizsäcker's successor Otto Köcher took up his post on June 3, 1937, Swiss recognition of Bibra's function as de facto regional group leader was only a question of diplomatic prestige, which, however , alarmed the Neue Zürcher Zeitung of September 17, 1937, which was about the Meeting of Germans Abroad in Stuttgart by Ernst Wilhelm Bohle announced, albeit immediately denied, the involvement of all foreign organizations in the respective diplomatic missions. Ambassador Köcher tried to downplay the press articles, including those of the National-Zeitung , which dealt with Bibra's position and illegal activities, as a form of publicity. By mid-1938, von Bibra had built up a veritable staff within the embassy to handle the AO's business, including a managing director, a manager for matters relating to the German Labor Front , an editor for the Deutsche Zeitung in Switzerland printed in Essen , and a manager of the Women's working groups and two secretaries. The Swiss diplomat Hans Frölicher had approved all positions for him before he was promoted to ambassador in Berlin. During his inaugural visit to Bohle, who has now risen to the position of State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Frölicher referred to the de facto situation of tolerance on the one hand, and political resistance in Central Switzerland and diplomatic pressure from France on the other . In the Swiss population there was not only National Socialist movements, but also resistance against their own fascists and against the Reich German National Socialists in the country: Lucerne's NS-Ortsgruppenführer August Ahrens, who in his speech in Stuttgart in 1937 regretted that no marches and uniforms were allowed in Switzerland gave up his photo business in 1938 because the local population boycotted German Nazi stores and an application for deportation had been made against him.

After the outbreak of the Second World War and the German military successes, Swiss politics became even more defensive (see appeasement policy ) and in October 1940 the leadership of the NSDAP was re-admitted, without any official demand from the Greater German government having preceded this step. In October 1942, almost half of the 80,000 or so Germans in Switzerland were likely to have participated in at least one of the National Socialist organizations and 2,400 Germans in Switzerland were party members (the membership ban of the NSDAP between 1933 and 1939 must be taken into account The wave of new entries in 1940 is therefore not only due to the successes in the Blitzkrieg). Bibra already saw himself as the future Gauleiter of Switzerland, but there was still resistance in Switzerland, for example from Regina Kägi-Fuchsmann , who had been managing director of the Swiss Workers' Relief Organization since 1933 : at a time when Switzerland was completely surrounded by German armies , demanded Mr. Bibra issued the personal details of all German refugees in Switzerland. He did not receive it, although he hit the table with his fist. That was in the spring of 1942.

Bibra was replaced as regional group leader in September 1943 by Consul General Wilhelm Stengel, who, however, held back under the changed military conditions in Europe. On May 1, 1945, the Swiss Federal Council decided to dissolve the NSDAP in Switzerland and to expel Stengel.

Spain

After the death of the ambassador in Frankist Spain Hans-Adolf von Moltke , who died in office on March 22, 1943, Bibra went to Madrid with the new ambassador Hans-Heinrich Dieckhoff . When, on June 17, 1944, the German diplomat Erich Heberlein , who was employed at the embassy in Madrid between March 1937 and February 1943, did not want to return to Berlin from sick leave he was spending in Spain, Bibra was involved in the action, in which the German Gestapo abducted Heberlein from Spain to a German concentration camp . After Dieckhoff was recalled on September 2, 1944, Bibra took over the role of business agent. On December 5, 1944, he was able to extend the current economic agreement between the German Reich and Spain until November 30, 1945.

At the end of the war he was interned in Spain, but was already being interrogated there by the Allies . In 1946 he was with the former National Socialist group leader in Spain, Hans Thomsen, in a group of 84 Germans who were transported to Stuttgart by Allied aircraft . Nothing is known about his further internment. During the denazification he was classified as a fellow traveler, although he was considered the most feared Nazi in Switzerland. In the esprit de corps of the Wilhelmstrasse diplomats Theodor Kordt had a despite his outrage over Bibras participation in the Heberlein affair him clean bill of health issued because Bibra was in 1942 involved in contacts with British diplomats in Switzerland, by Heinrich Himmler had been initiated.

Bibra cultivated an agricultural property in the post-war period.

Bibra had married Irmela von Langenn-Steinkeller (1915–1985) in 1936 and was married to Renata Freiin von Guttenberg-Steinenhausen (1914–1981) for the second time since 1953 . In Switzerland Bibra had an affair with the wife of a Swiss defense officer.

See also

• Switzerland in World War II

Fonts

• The economic situation of Soviet Russia before the Treaty of Rapallo , undated (Würzburg, R.- and staatswiss. Diss., 1923)

literature

• Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 1: Johannes Hürter : A – F. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2000, ISBN 3-506-71840-1 .
• Günter Lachmann: National Socialism in Switzerland 1931-1945. A contribution to the history of the foreign organization of the NSDAP. Ernst Reuter Society, Berlin-Dahlem 1962.
• Werner Rings , Switzerland at War , Zurich: Chronos, 1990 ISBN 3-905312-33-6 .
• Horst Zimmermann: Switzerland and Greater Germany. The relationship between the Confederation, Austria and Germany 1933-1945 , Fink, Munich 1980

Web links

• Literature by Sigismund von Bibra in the catalog of the German National Library
• Sigismund von Bibra in the online version of the files of the Reich Chancellery. Weimar Republic
• Hans-Sigismund Günther, Freiherr von Bibra at geneall.net

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Rene Senenko: In the shadow of the Thungasse: about an undisguised Gestapo spy among anti-fascist emigrants in Prague in 1933 , the left one in Circular 3/2008 ( Memento of the original from May 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and still Not checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 947 kB) 
2. ↑ Walter Bußmann et al. (Ed.): Files on German foreign policy. 1918-1945. Series C: 1933-1937 Volume II, 1 October 14, 1933 to January 31, 1934. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1973, pp. 243f.
3. ^ Ernst von Weizsäcker to Sigismund von Bibra, Legation Councilor Bern, on October 30, 1936, in: Walter Bußmann et al. (Ed.): Files on German Foreign Policy. 1918-1945. Series C: 1933-1936. The Third Reich: The First Years. Volume V, 2: May 26 to October 31, 1936. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1977, p. 1062f, quotation p. 1063.
4. ↑ Historical Lexicon of Switzerland
5. ↑ Regina Kägi-Fuchsmann, The good heart is not enough. My life and work , Zurich: Ex-Libris, 1968, p. 168.
6. ↑ on Wilhelm Stengel (1900-) see the short entry in Karl Hans Bergmann : The "Free Germany" movement in Switzerland: 1943 - 1945. With e. Contribution by Wolfgang Stock: Swiss refugee policy and exiled German labor movement 1933 - 1943 Munich: Hanser, 1974 ISBN 3-446-11948-5 .
7. ↑ Walter Bußmann et al. (Ed.): Files on German foreign policy. 1918-1945. Series E: 1941-1945 Volume VIII May 1, 1944 to May 8, 1945. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1979, p. 578f.
8. ↑ Not to be confused with the diplomat Hans Thomsen . The regional group leader in Madrid was also a member of the Waffen-SS, see: Federal Archives  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
9. ↑ Thomas W. Maulucci Jr .: Herbert Blankenhorn in the Third Reich , Central European History 42 (2009), 253-278.