Walther Jansen

This article describes the Federal Bailiff of the German Scout Association Walther Jansen. For other people see Walter Jansen .

Walther Jansen (born October 27, 1897 in Breslau ; † November 5, 1959 in Hamburg ; journey name : Michael ) was Federal Bailiff of the German Scout Association (DPB).

Life

Jansen was one of the most important leaders of the German scout movement . He first came into contact with the youth movement in 1908 . In 1914 he went to the Western Front as a war volunteer, where he took part in the Battle of Langemarck . In 1915 he was retired due to illness and because of his youth, he took part in the war again in 1917/18. In 1918 he graduated from the Maria-Magdalenen-Gymnasium in Breslau , after which he found a job in his father's dentist practice . From 1921 he worked as a freelance writer and editor.

In 1922 he became a member and later leader of the New German Scout Association (with Rudolf Juergens - "Rulf"), which felt connected to the ideals of the Bündische Jugend , in contrast to the scoutism of the scout associations, which followed the principles of the scout movement of Robert Baden-Powell . 1933 Walther Jansen (Michael) Reich Vogt in 1932 from the merger of New German Federal scout, the German Federal scouts , of the Association of Reich scout and the German ring Community scout formed Reich shaft German scout .

After the Gestapo had banned the other scout associations in the course of bringing the associations into line, Walther Jansen, together with the two scout leaders Eberhard Plewe and Rudolf Jürgens , succeeded in postponing a ban on the Reichsschaft Deutscher scouts until June 1934.

From 1936 to 1938 Jansen worked as a Gestapo agent (undercover agent) in Holland and Belgium. His job in the Netherlands and Belgium was to spy on German emigrants and report them to the Gestapo. At the same time he helped the persecuted to flee across the German-Dutch border. In 1938 he was noticed in Belgium for using false names by the police, was arrested and deported to Germany. Here he was briefly detained by the Gestapo. After his release, he got a job in the Foreign Office , where he set up a press and news archive. It is unclear whether this appointment came about through the mediation of the diplomat Werner Otto von Hentigs , with whom Jansen had very close ties, or at the instruction of the Gestapo. According to the resistance fighter and SPD member of the Bundestag, Hermann Brill , a resistance group of six to eight uncompromising Nazi opponents had formed around Walther Jansen since 1940 . These included Brill and his employees and representatives, the orientalist Hans Schlobies. These three saw each other every day. Eberhard Plewe also belonged to the group. To what extent the Jansen group was connected to the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944 , Brill was not known, since he was absent during this time. After July 20, Jansen was arrested not for participating in the attack, but for making “defeatist statements” against the regime. He was deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . As a result, Jansen took part in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp death march to Wittstock in April 1945 and was finally liberated by the Red Army .

In Berlin he was recognized as being persecuted by the Nazi regime, withholding his NSDAP membership. In 1945, together with Eberhard Plewe and other survivors of the scout movement, he re-founded the German Scout Association (DPB), which still exists today as an interdenominational, alliance scout association and which he chaired as federal bailiff until his death in 1959. In 1947 Jansen was arrested by the British occupying forces and taken to Internment Camp Eselheide near Paderborn, from where he was soon released. From 1945 to 1952, Jansen, recognized as a victim of fascism , worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (today: Max Planck Institute) for international law in Berlin as a research assistant. In 1952 he returned to the Foreign Office , where he headed the press department. In 1956 he was appointed First Class Legation Councilor. He died in Hamburg in 1959.

literature

• German Boy Scout Mirror. 4th, revised. Edition. Karlsruhe 1999.
• Heinz Kössling: Reichsschaft German Scouts. In: pulse. Documentation of the youth movement. No. 12, Heidenheim 1985.
• Jürgen W. Diener: Eberhard Plewe. The search for unity and unity. In: pulse. Documentation of the youth movement. No. 16, Heidenheim 1988.
• Fritz Schmidt: My old alliance opponent Eberhard Köbel. Dr. Arnold Littmann between the youth movement, Gestapo and emigration in Sweden. Edermünde 2004, ISBN 3-932435-18-4 .
• Federal Archives Berlin ZC 14105/11; Pole. Archive of the Foreign Office Berlin, R 102067.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hermann Brill : Presentation of the participation of Dr. Melchers in the resistance movement. In: Hermann Brill: Written report of the committee of inquiry (47th committee) according to the request of the parliamentary group of the SPD regarding examination of whether abuses in the foreign service have arisen due to personnel policy . German Bundestag, 1st electoral period, 1949, printed matter No. 3465, p. 88.