Vilhelms Munters

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Gothard Vilhelms Munters Nikolajs (German: Wilhelm Munter, Wilhelm Munters; Russian: Вильгельм Николаевич Мунтерс; born July 13 . Jul / 25. July  1898 . Greg in Riga ; † 10. January 1967 ) was a Latvian statesman and diplomat and Foreign Minister of the Republic of Latvia from 1936 to 1940 .

Life

Vilhelms Munters was born in Riga as Wilhelm Munter. His father was Nikolaus Munter (Latvian: Nikolajs Munters), his mother Karolina Auguste Ulrika (née Klein). Both came from Baltic German families in Estonia . In 1939 his mother and sister registered for the resettlement of the Baltic Germans to Germany. In 1915 Munters graduated from the Riga City School of Commerce and entered the chemistry faculty at the Riga Polytechnic Institute .

Munters (left) with Ribbentrop and Selter signing the non-aggression pact in 1938

In 1917 he was drafted into the Russian army . As an officer student in St. Petersburg he experienced the October Revolution , fought against the Bolsheviks and was briefly imprisoned. After his return to the Baltic States, he joined the Estonian Army on June 24, 1919 after the Battle of Cēsis and was involved in the fighting against the Baltic State Armed Forces and the Red Army . On October 17, 1920 he received his farewell and finished his studies until 1925.

Merrily spoke fluent Latvian, Estonian, German and Russian. From 1920 he made a career in the Latvian Foreign Ministry. After the coup d'état of May 15, 1934 by Kārlis Ulmanis , he practically ran the affairs of the Foreign Ministry. From 1936 to 1940 he was also officially foreign minister.

He took part directly in the negotiations of the non-aggression pact between Germany and Latvia and of the so-called mutual aid agreement with the Soviet Union (October 1939). He was also a representative of Latvia to the League of Nations .

On July 16, 1940, after the Soviet occupation of the Baltic region, Munters was deported to Voronezh , where he taught the German language at a university of education. Several times he turned to Anastas Mikojan with the request to find a job for him at the People's Commissariat for Foreign Trade. He also wrote detailed reports on his contemporaries for intelligence chief Lavrenti Beria .

After the German attack on the Soviet Union , he was arrested and taken to Kirov prison. In 1952 he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for “fighting against the labor movement and the Soviet Union”. In 1954, after Stalin's death , he was released and was able to return to Latvia in 1959. There he worked at the Latvian Academy of Sciences . Munters published articles in the Soviet press, particularly in Izvestia , in which he sharply criticized the Latvian emigrants, the majority of whom had fled the country before the second Soviet occupation in autumn 1944.

Vilhelms Munters died on January 10, 1967 in Riga.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry in the baptismal register of St. Peter's Church in Riga (Latvian: Rīgas sv. Pētera baznīca)
  2. ^ National Socialist "Volkstumsarbeit" and resettlement policy 1933-1945 , Google books, accessed on July 11, 2010
  3. ↑ Latvia in the 20th Century , accessed July 11, 2010
  4. ↑ Пакт о взаимопомощи между СССР и Латвией , Russian, accessed July 11, 2010
personal data
SURNAME Munters, Vilhelms
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Munters, Gothards Vilhelms Nikolajs
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Latvian statesman and diplomat, Foreign Minister of the Republic of Latvia (1936–1940)
DATE OF BIRTH July 25, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Riga
DATE OF DEATH January 10, 1967
Place of death Riga