Werner Otto von Hentig

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Werner Otto von Hentig (born May 22, 1886 in Berlin ; † August 8, 1984 in Lindesnes , Norway ) was a German diplomat .

biography

Family, youth and education

Werner Otto von Hentig was the son of the Protestant Minister of State Otto von Hentig, who was ennobled in 1901, and his wife Marie Dankberg. His younger brother was the later criminal psychologist Hans von Hentig . Hentig was married to Natalie von Kügelgen in his first marriage since 1923. From this marriage a son and a daughter were born. From 1929 he was married to Luise von Mach, with whom he had two sons and a daughter. He attended the Joachimsthalsche school and studied in Grenoble, Konigsberg, Berlin and Bonn law . In 1909 he was promoted to Dr. jur. et rer. pole. obtained his doctorate and entered the Prussian judicial service, in 1911 he was called up to the diplomatic service .

1911-1945

In December 1911 von Hentig was sent to Beijing as an attaché . This was followed by Konstantin Opel and Tehran . After participating in the winter battle in Masuria , he was sent to Afghanistan from 1915 to 1917 as a legation councilor to persuade Indian princes in the Afghan-Indian border region to revolt against British rule. This trip took him from Constantinople via Persia, Afghanistan to China's east coast (so-called Niedermayer-Hentig expedition ). After his return, von Hentig was appointed press officer at the German embassy in Constantinople. In 1920 von Hentig resigned from his service in the Reich, became involved in the “Nansen Foundation” for the rescue of German prisoners of war from Siberia, then in 1921 he was again chargé d'affaires of the Reich, first in Estonia , then in the Balkans in Sofia and finally in Posen (Consul General from 1924 ibid.). In the twenties he became active in the German youth movement. In the thirties von Hentig represented the German Reich as its consul general in San Francisco and Bogotá , where an attack on him was carried out in 1935. 1937–1939 he headed the Orient Department of the Foreign Office in Berlin. As a representative of the Foreign Office (VAA) at the High Command of the 11th Army, Werner Otto von Hentig was a reporter from the Crimean theater between 1941 and 1942. In the summer of 1942 he reported on the discovery of mostly Jewish mass graves in the Crimea and was the only VAA to criticize the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews in the area of ​​operation. His responsibilities later included looking after Mohammed Amin al-Husseini , the Mufti of Jerusalem, whom he accompanied from Berlin to Salzburg to Gustav Scheel on April 6, 1945 , in order to help him successfully escape from defeated Germany.

post war period

From August 1945 to July 1946 von Hentig was interned by the Allies, from October 1946 to December 1949 he was employed by the Evangelical Church in Germany as a consultant for international affairs. In 1952/53 von Hentig was the ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany in Indonesia . During this time he made several stops in Egypt to meet with Mohammed Amin al-Husseini and representatives of the Arab League .

Von Hentig was a sharp opponent of the Luxembourg Agreement signed in September 1952 . In the same month he sent a letter to the Egyptian envoy in Jakarta to support the Arab protests against the Luxembourg Agreement. Eckart Conze et al. To sum up: "In it, Hentig called on the Arab states to continue with their protests against the Bonn reparation policy in order to further undermine the already weak position of the Adenauer government."

After leaving the Foreign Service, von Hentig was a personal advisor to the Saudi Arabian royal family for about 2 years .

In 1961, together with Wolf Schenke , Hermann Schwann , Bogislaw von Bonin and Theodor Kögler ( KPD , SAP ), he participated in the founding of a neutralist association of the German National Assembly (VDNV).

The pedagogue and publicist Hartmut von Hentig is his son.

Awards

  • Iron cross first class

Fonts

  • Testimonials and personal testimonials . Langewiesche-Brandt, Ebenhausen near Munich 1971, ISBN 3-7846-0058-1
  • From Kabul to Shanghai , Libelle, Konstanz 2003
  • My life, a business trip , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1962
  • My diplomatic trip to the closed country , Ullstein war books 1918

literature

  • Marion Countess Dönhoff : Childhood in East Prussia . Siedler, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-88680-332-5 .
  • Tomas Fitzel: With the traveling circus to Afghanistan. Werner Otto von Hentig established good German-Afghan relations with his adventurous secret mission in 1915. In: Frankfurter Rundschau . February 2, 2002.
  • Hartmut von Hentig : My life, considered and affirmed. Volume 1: Childhood and Adolescence . Hanser, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-446-20839-1 .
  • Peter Hopkirk : The Great Game. The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia. Kōdansha International, New York NY et al. 1994, ISBN 1-56836-022-3 .
  • Thomas L. Hughes: The German mission to Afghanistan, 1915-1916. In: Wolfgang G. Schwanitz (Ed.): Germany and the Middle East 1871-1945. Iberoamericana et al., Madrid et al. 2004, ISBN 84-8489-169-0 , pp. 25-64.
  • Johannes Hürter : News from the "Second Crimean War" (1941/42). In: Wolfgang Elz, Sönke Neitzel (ed.): International relations in the 19th and 20th centuries. Festschrift for Winfried Baumgart on his 65th birthday. Schöningh, Paderborn u. a. 2003, ISBN 3-506-70140-1 , pp. 361-387 ( online ).
  • Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 2: Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: G – K. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2005, ISBN 3-506-71841-X , pp. 275-278
  • Hans-Ulrich Seidt : Berlin, Kabul, Moscow. Oskar Ritter von Niedermayer and Germany's geopolitics. Universitas, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-8004-1438-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johannes Hürter: News from the "Second Crimean War" (1941/42). In: Wolfgang Elz, Sönke Neitzel (ed.): International relations in the 19th and 20th centuries. Festschrift for Winfried Baumgart on his 65th birthday. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2003, ISBN 3-506-70140-1 , pp. 361-387 (online).
  2. ↑ Eckart Conze u. a .: The office and the past. German diplomats in the Third Reich and in the Federal Republic, Karl Blessing Verlag 2010, p. 213.
  3. ↑ Der Führer aus dem Morgenland , in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , April 28, 2010.
  4. ↑ Eckart Conze u. a., p. 581.
  5. ^ Wilhelm Litten : Persian honeymoon. Georg Stilke, Berlin 1925, p. 162
personal data
SURNAME Hentig, Werner Otto von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH May 22, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH August 8, 1984
Place of death Lindesnes