Ulrich von Sell

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Ulrich Freiherr von Sell (born February 18, 1884 in Berlin ; † November 12, 1945 in Jamlitz ) was a German officer in the Prussian Army and later in the Wehrmacht . He was a close confidante of the last German Emperor Wilhelm II .

Life

He was the son of the later Prussian major general Wilhelm von Sell (1842-1922) and his wife Hedwig, née von Rosenstiel (born April 23, 1860 in Marienwalde). His three brothers died as officers in the First World War .

After finishing school, Sell embarked on a military career in the Prussian Army . Coming from the cadet corps, he was transferred on March 22, 1902 as a lieutenant to the Emperor Franz Garde Grenadier Regiment No. 2 . From 1910 to 1914 Sell was commanded to provide services at the Foreign Office and during this time acted as an adjutant to Reich Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg . Sell ​​held this position even after the outbreak of World War I and was promoted to captain on October 8, 1914 . In the further course of the war he was in the General Staff of the XXVI. Reserve Corps and later became First General Staff Officer of the 33rd Division on the Western Front . In this capacity, he was badly shot in the skull on May 27, 1918.

After the war, he left with the character as a Major out of the military service and worked in the trade and finance. From 1922 he worked as an asset manager for the former German Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was in exile in the Netherlands. In addition, from 1927 he held the post of a consultant in his house ministry, became a wing adjutant and from 1929 was head of the private box. Sell testified in his favor in the 1937 trial against Martin Niemöller . Sell ​​advised the former Kaiser against conferring with Adolf Hitler . When Wilhelm II died in 1941, Sell carried out his will.

After the outbreak of the Second World War , Sell was from the end of September 1939 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Foreign / Defense Office in the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW), in which he headed Department 9 and was deputy head of the foreign letter inspection center (ABP-3). From 1941 Sell headed the foreign letter inspection center. Sell ​​was dismissed from office in 1942 and tried before a court martial. The background to this measure was that Sell had employed " Jewish infiltrated " employees in his office and had "unjustified" employees deferred from military service as indispensable. He was then officially assigned to the Brandenburg Division. Sell, who held secret meetings in his house with Wilhelm Canaris , Hans Oster , Ulrich von Hassell and Werner von Haeften , was also informed about the military resistance through consultations in the Bendler block . In the Beck / Goerdeler shadow cabinet , Sell was scheduled as a liaison officer in Military District IX (Kassel). After the failed assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , he was arrested by Gestapo employees , interrogated and imprisoned in the Lehrter Strasse cell prison. On March 30, 1945 Sell was released from custody.

After the battle for Berlin , Sell was arrested by SMERSCH employees when he wanted to make an exonerating statement for his imprisoned former employee Paul Poensgen . Sell ​​was sent to special camp No. 6 on August 1, 1945 , which was closed in September 1945 and relocated to Jamlitz. Sell ​​died there in November 1945 of pneumonia and malnutrition.

Sell ​​was married to Augusta, née von Brauchitsch. The couple had a son and a daughter. The son Friedrich-Wilhelm von Sell became director of the WDR and ORB . The daughter Sybilla Augusta Sophia (born 1923) emigrated to the USA after the end of the Second World War and became an American citizen. From 1959 to 1968 she was with Ross Donaldson, u. a. Married Vice President of NBC . After her divorce, she married the pastor Martin Niemöller in 1971 , the couple lived in Wiesbaden . She converted to Judaism in 1989 and has been called Sarah Sibylle Niemöller von Sell ever since . Her father was posthumously rehabilitated by the Moscow Chief Military Prosecutor on October 30, 1997 .

literature

  • Andreas Weigelt: Retraining camps do not exist: On the history of the Soviet special camp Jamlitz 1945–1947 . Brandenburg State Center for Civic Education - Foundation for coming to terms with the SED dictatorship, Potsdam 2001, ISBN 3-932502-29-9 ( PDF file, 1.46 MB ), there: Short biography Ulrich Freiherr von Sell, p. 160.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Kurt von Priesdorff : Soldatisches Führertum . Volume 10, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, undated [Hamburg], undated [1942], DNB 986919810 , pp. 134f., No. 3127.
  2. ↑ a b c d Andreas Weigelt: Retraining camps do not exist: On the history of the Soviet special camp Jamlitz 1945–1947. Potsdam 2001, p. 160.
  3. ↑ Short biography of the German Resistance Memorial Center
  4. ↑ Erhart Hohenstein: founding father of the ORB: "More public" Friedrich-Wilhelm von Sells memories on http://www.pnn.de
  5. ^ Record in the catalog of the German National Library
  6. ↑ New German biography Neuwach-Pagel, Berlin 1999, Volume 19, pages 239, entry: Marin Niemoller
  7. ↑ Walter Homolka, Esther Seidel (Ed.): Not through birth alone: ​​Conversion to Judaism. Frank & Timme, Berlin 2006, p. 257
personal data
SURNAME Sell, Ulrich von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sell, Ulrich Freiherr von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer
DATE OF BIRTH February 18, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH November 12, 1945
Place of death Jamlitz