Walter Roessler

Walter Rößler (born October 7, 1871 in Berlin ; † April 4, 1929 there ) was a German consul .

Life

His parents were the university professor and secret legation counselor Constantin Rößler (1820-1896) and Clara geb. Abeking.

In 1903 he was the Prussian Imperial Vice Consul in Zanzibar .

In April 1902 he married Gertrud, the daughter of Hugo Neumann, and on May 25, 1903, their first son Helmut Konstantin Hugo Emmerich Rößler was born in Mombasa , British East Africa .

In 1904 he became vice consul in Jaffa . He passed his Consular Examination on October 11, 1908, and was appointed Consul of Canton that same year .

From May 27, 1910 to 1918, he took over the business as consul in Syrian Aleppo in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War .

On May 10, 1915, he reported to the ambassador to Constantinople Hans von Wangenheim and the Reich Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg of the persecution of the Armenians : "All Armenians of property, education and influence should be eliminated so that only a leaderless herd remains." his colleagues from Erzurum and Adana also sounded the alarm, Berlin was not impressed. With American donations he financed food for "thousands of Armenian refugees in concentration camps in the desert and Aleppo". But in 1916 they were all murdered by the Turks. During the war, Rößler stood up for the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire more than any other German consul.

In 1921, on instructions from the German Foreign Ministry, he was not allowed to testify at the Talât Pascha murder trial in Berlin. Walter Rößler's statements can be found in the Political Archives of the Foreign Office, Berlin and in the National Archives, Washington.

literature

Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 3: Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: L – R. Schöningh, Paderborn 2008, ISBN 978-3-506-71842-6 .
Johannes Lepsius : Germany and Armenia 1914-1918. Collection of diplomatic files . Tempelverlag, Potsdam 1916, reprints by Vahric and Dr. Harutyn Melkonyan, 2014.
Wolfgang Gust : The Armenian Genocide 1915/16. Documents from the Political Archive of the German Foreign Office . To Klampen-Verlag, Springe 2005, ISBN 3-934920-59-4 .
Rolf Hosfeld : Death in the Desert. The Armenian Genocide . CH Beck, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-406-67451-8 .
Kai Seyffarth : Decision in Aleppo. Walter Rößler (1871–1929) - Helper of the persecuted Armenians. A biography . Donat-Verlag, Bremen 2015, ISBN 978-3-943425-53-6 .

Individual evidence

↑ Zeev W. Sadmon, The establishment of the Technion in Haifa, in the light of German politics: 1907-1920 , Munich et al .: Saur, 1994 (. = Individual Publications of the Berlin Historical Commission, vol 78) 24. Zugl. : Trier, Univ., Diss. ISBN 3-598-23222-5 .
↑ Zentralblatt für das Deutsche Reich, Volume 36, 1908

Web links

Commons : Walter Rößler - Collection of images, videos and audio files

personal data
SURNAME	Roessler, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	consul
DATE OF BIRTH	October 7, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH	Berlin
DATE OF DEATH	April 4, 1929
Place of death	Berlin

[Sadmon_1994_23-1] Zeev W. Sadmon, The establishment of the Technion in Haifa, in the light of German politics: 1907-1920 , Munich et al .: Saur, 1994 (. = Individual Publications of the Berlin Historical Commission, vol 78) 24. Zugl. : Trier, Univ., Diss. ISBN 3-598-23222-5 .

[2] Zentralblatt für das Deutsche Reich, Volume 36, 1908