Werner von Tippelskirch

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Werner von Tippelskirch as a witness at the Nuremberg trials

Werner von Tippelskirch (born March 9, 1891 in Koblenz , † January 1, 1980 in Stuttgart ) was a German diplomat with the rank of envoy .

Life and professional development

Werner von Tippelskirch was born in Koblenz as the son of the Kommerzienrat Wilhelm von Tippelskirch and his wife Antonia, née Wüst. The religious affiliation of the parental home was Protestant. He attended the municipal high school in Düsseldorf, the cadet house in Bensberg and then the reform high school in Düsseldorf. Here he passed the Abitur at Easter 1911. After attending school, he joined the Prussian army on April 1, 1911. He began as an officer in a Guard Fusilier Regiment and was promoted to lieutenant on August 10, 1912. From August 1914 he took part in World War I and was promoted to first lieutenant on January 27, 1916.

In the foreign service

On January 20, 1916, Werner von Tippelskirch was assigned as an officer to the imperial embassy in Kristiania . He began his service as an attaché on February 2 and stayed in Oslo until February 28, 1919. Shortly afterwards, on August 6, 1919, he was admitted to the Foreign Service for a diplomatic career. In the same month he was selected for a job in the Foreign Office in Berlin and began working in the Foreign Trade Office on October 1, 1919. At the beginning of the following year he was transferred to the German embassy in The Hague , where he was appointed legation secretary on June 6, 1920. His superior was the envoy Friedrich Rosen . On January 4, 1921, Tippelskirch moved to the German embassy in Brussels. He passed his consular examination on September 3, 1921 and was appointed Secretary of Legation on November 5, 1921. From November 1921 he was used as a "flying" secretary of the legation. He was then earmarked for the assignment as vice consul at the consulate in Antwerp. He began his service there on April 2, 1922. The duration of the assignment was until October 15, 1924. He then moved to the Foreign Office in Department IV with the country responsibilities for Eastern Europe, Scandinavia and East Asia. From there he went to the German Embassy in Moscow on November 12, 1925 with the official title of Legation Secretary. Ambassador during this time was Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau (1869–1928). From November 2, 1926, Tippelskirch was appointed Legation Councilor. His service in Moscow ended on July 14, 1928. On August 15, 1928, he began his service at the German embassy in Riga. In December of the following year he was appointed Legation Councilor II class. In April 1931, Tippelskirch was brought back to the Foreign Office. On April 20, 1931, he took over the management of the Russia section of Department IV (Eastern Europe). There he was promoted to Legation Council First Class on December 22, 1932.

Time of the Nazi regime

Shortly after Adolf Hitler took over the chancellorship, Tippelskirch joined the NSDAP in April. Starting on September 17, 1935, he was transferred to the German embassy in Moscow as counselor. He began his service there on November 1, 1935. The German ambassador in Moscow was Friedrich-Werner Graf von der Schulenburg (1875–1944). As counselor from 1935 to 1941 - since March 1, 1940 with the official title of envoy - after Schulenburg, whom he represented as chargé d'affaires in his absence, he was the second highest employee of the German representation in the Soviet capital. After the German attack on the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, Tippelskirch returned to Germany. He left Moscow on June 24, 1941. During this time he kept a diary and in the same year published excerpts from it under the title “From the outbreak of the German-Soviet war to the return to Germany”. From July 24th he was employed in the Foreign Office in the "Political Department", where he worked as an embassy counselor with the title of envoy on matters relating to Russia, the Baltic states and Poland. For a short time in January and February 1943 he was the representative of the Foreign Office at the General Government in Cracow. On October 27, 1944, when he returned to Germany, he was appointed head of Section XIII in the Foreign Office in Berlin, specializing in Panturanic issues. He remained in this post until May 1945. Shortly before the arrival of the Soviet troops in Berlin, he left for Bad Gastein together with other employees, office workers, secretaries and chauffeurs from the Foreign Office . There he was captured by soldiers of the 7th US Army. He was interrogated while in US captivity and subsequently used as a witness at the Nuremberg trials .

family

Werner von Tippelskirch married Dorette, nee Freiin von Esebeck, on November 1st, 1935. Her father was the Prussian officer Friedrich Freiherr von Esebeck. The two sons Wolf-Dietrich, born in 1936, and Bernhard, born in 1938, emerged from the marriage. A cousin of Tippelskirch was the chief quartermaster in the general staff of the Army Kurt von Tippelskirch (1891–1957).

Werner von Tippelskirch died on January 1st, 1980 in Stuttgart.

Publications

  • From the outbreak of the German-Soviet war to the return to Germany. Diary entries from June 22 to July 24, 1941, MS Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Berlin 1941

literature

  • Conze, Frei, Hayes, Zimmermann: The Office and the Past. German diplomats in the Third Reich and in the Federal Republic. Karl Blessing Verlag, Munich, 2010
  • Johannes Hürter (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871 - 1945 . 5. T - Z, pp. 50f. and 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 .
  • Johannes Hürter : The Foreign Office in the Nazi dictatorship , De Gruyter Verlag, Oldenburg 1963
  • Herman Teske (Ed.): General Ernst Köstring. The military mediator between the German Reich and the Soviet Union 1921–1941. Publisher ES Mittler & Sohn GmbH, Frankfurt / Main, 1965
  • Ranking of the German Imperial Army. According to the years 1910 to 1919 , Mittler Verlag, Berlin, 1910 to 1919

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ranking list of the German Imperial Army. According to the years 1910 to 1919 , Mittler Verlag, Berlin, 1910 to 1919.
  2. ↑ Johannes Hürter (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871-1945. 5. T - Z, p. 50f. and 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 .
  3. ↑ Donald Cameron Watt: How war came. The Immediate Origins of the Second World War 1938-1939 , 1989, p. 368.
  4. ^ Johannes Hürter : The Foreign Office in the Nazi Dictatorship, De Gruyter Verlag, Oldenburg 1963
  5. ↑ Conze, Frei, Hayes, Zimmermann: The office and the past. German diplomats in the Third Reich and in the Federal Republic. Karl Blessing Verlag, Munich, 2010, p. 336
personal data
SURNAME Tippelskirch, Werner von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH March 9, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Koblenz
DATE OF DEATH January 1, 1980
Place of death Stuttgart