Walter Zechlin

Carl von Schubert (left) and Walter Zechlin, 1926

Walter Zechlin (born November 25, 1879 in Schivelbein , Western Pomerania ; † January 24, 1962 in Lüneburg ) was a German diplomat and civil servant.

Live and act

Zechlin was born in 1879 as the son of a school and seminar director. He was the brother of Erich Zechlin and a distant relative of the historian Egmont Zechlin . After attending school, Walter Zechlin studied law and oriental languages. He received his doctorate and then joined the Foreign Service in 1903 . From 1914 to 1917 he was imperial consul in the Spanish-Moroccan town of Tétouan . Due to accusations by the Entente Powers of having been involved in inciting locals against the French, which was regarded as a German war action, Zechlin was finally transferred to the embassy in Madrid at the request of the Spanish government.

In 1919 Zechlin joined the United Press Department of the Reich Government and the Foreign Office . In 1924 he became its deputy head. On November 4, 1926, he was appointed head of the press department. He remained in this post until June 1, 1932, when he submitted his resignation on the occasion of the resignation of the Brüning government . In his capacity as press chief of the Reich Government, Zechlin presented situation reports to both the Reich Chancellor and the Reich President daily in the morning hours, in which he gave the head of government and the head of state an oral summary of the internal German and international press comments on the basis of his own newspaper reading and excerpts from his employees presented.

At the turn of 1932/1933, Zechlin was sent to Mexico as the German envoy, but only remained in this position until the " seizure of power ". The following year he was decommissioned because of his social democratic orientation. During this time he wrote several books, mainly of an autobiographical nature.

In 1939 Zechlin went to Spain and worked as a personal advisor for the German ambassador Eberhard von Stohrer and at times for the defense of the OKW . When he resisted the instructions of the Foreign Office to return to Germany, he was expatriated on September 19, 1944. After the Second World War he returned to Germany, where he again worked as press officer from 1946 to 1954, this time for the Lower Saxony Prime Minister Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf .

Honors

• 1953: Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

Fonts

as an author

• The commercial apprenticeship contract . Dieterich, Göttingen 1905 (also dissertation, University of Göttingen 1905).
• Diplomacy and Diplomats . DVA, Stuttgart 1935.
• Happy life journey. Diplomatic and undiplomatic memories . DVA, Stuttgart 1936.
• Press chief at Ebert , Hindenburg and Kopf . Experiences of a press officer and diplomat . Schlueter Verlag, Hanover 1956.
• The world of diplomacy . 2nd edition. Athenäum Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 1960.

as translator

• Hugh R. Wilson : Apprenticeship of a diplomat ( "The education of a diplomat"). DVA, Stuttgart 1938.

literature

• Johannes Hürter (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871 - 1945. 5. T - Z, supplements. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 5: Bernd Isphording, Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2014, ISBN 978-3-506-71844-0 , p. 357 f.

Web links

• Literature by and about Walter Zechlin in the catalog of the German National Library

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

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Zechlins. Family and descendants tables of Achim Segelin 1541 in Kyritz, Lentz Zechlin around 1600 in Scharlibbe u. Jürgen Zechlin around 1700 in Stolper Land, edited by Cläre Maillard , b. Zechlin, Berlin 1937. An earlier version of the book was in 1912 by Erich Zechlin created
2. ↑ Walter Zechlin , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 11/1962 of March 5, 1962, in the Munzinger Archive , accessed on June 17, 2011 ( beginning of the article freely accessible)