Wilhelm Albrecht von Schoen

Wilhelm Albrecht von Schoen (born August 29, 1886 in The Hague ; † April 12, 1960 at Gestüt Großschwaig, Irschenberg ) was a German diplomat .

Life

Wilhelm Albrecht von Schoen was the son of the diplomat Wilhelm von Schoen and Bertha, born. Baroness of Groote. After attending a school in Schnepfenthal and the Theresien-Gymnasium in Munich, he studied law in Heidelberg, Berlin, Munich and Strasbourg. In Würzburg, he received his doctorate in 1908 for Dr. jur. In the same year he joined the Prussian diplomatic service as a trainee lawyer, then as an attaché .

In 1910 he was employed at the consulate general in Antwerp and the embassy in Brussels. The following year he worked in the embassy in Paris . From 1913 to 1920 he was legation secretary in Tokyo , Washington, DC and Mexico City . He then worked as a Legation Councilor , first in Rome from 1921 to 1924 , then in Beijing from 1925 to 1927 and in Tokyo in 1928. From 1929 to 1932 he was head of the department for East Asia in the Reich Foreign Ministry and from 1932 to 1935 envoy in Addis Ababa ( Ethiopia ).

In March 1935 Wilhelm Albrecht von Schoen was appointed envoy to Santiago de Chile ( Chile ), where he was the first German ambassador from April 22, 1936 until the break in relations on January 20, 1943. After that, Schön returned to Germany and lived on his Großschwaig estate. In 1944 he worked again in the Foreign Office in Berlin. He belonged to the NSRB , but was not a member of the NSDAP . Since he was married to an American woman, he was retired in November 1944 on the basis of the Fuehrer's decree to “keep internationally bound men away from relevant positions in the party, state and armed forces” of May 19, 1943.

After the end of the Second World War, Schoen became politically active in the CSU, which elected him as chairman in Parsberg and nominated him as an assessor in the Miesbach Chamber . In May 1946 he was elected district administrator in the Miesbach district. One month later, however, the Spruchkammer removed him from this office and initiated proceedings under Act No. 104 for the Liberation from National Socialism and Militarism ( Denazification ). The former happened by means of an interim order, which the Bavarian State Ministry for Special Tasks lifted and referred the case back to the Arbitration Chamber. There followed an indictment of Schoen's classification in Category 1 (main culprit). In September 1946, the Spruchkammer decided instead to classify it in Category 5 (exonerated). The subsequent appeal ended in August 1947 when the case was closed because the Court of Cassation declared the original indictment inadmissible. The background to the lengthy proceedings was evidence from the American secret service that Schoen might have been involved in the Nazis' infiltration of Latin America during his time as ambassador to Chile. Schoen also testified at the Wilhelmstrasse trial and made an affidavit in September 1947 about the activities of the NSDAP foreign organization in Chile.

Schoen remained active in the CSU, u. a. as district chairman and member of the economic advisory board. He ran in the first federal election in 1949 , but did not get a mandate. In 1954 he was a founding member of the working group for democratic circles in Bavaria .

Schoen was with the American Catherine, b. Birney married. The marriage had two children. His older son Alexander von Schoen (1924–1944) served in the Air Force and died in World War II. His son Hans von Schoen (* 1932) is a major shareholder in EGT AG .

Publications

• History of Central and South America. F. Bruckmann, Munich 1953.
• Alfonso X of Castile, an uncrowned German king. F. Bruckmann, Munich 1957.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Schoen, Wilhelm Albrecht Frh. Von, diplomat . In: Rudolf Vierhaus (Ed.): German Biographical Encyclopedia (DBE) . 2., revised. and extended edition. tape 9 : Schlumberger – Thiersch . De Gruyter / KG Saur, Berlin / Boston / Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-096502-5 , p. 139 ( books.google.de - limited preview). .
2. ↑ Tobias C. Bringmann : Handbook of Diplomacy 1815-1963: Foreign Mission Heads in Germany. Walter de Gruyter, 2001, p. 28 ( books.google.de ).
3. ^ Dorothee Schlueter: From the battle paper to the state propaganda. The external press work of the NSDAP is documented using the example of the NS weekly magazine "Westküsten-Beobachter" from Chile. V&R unipress, 2016, ISBN 978-3-8471-0523-7 , p. 66 ( books.google.de ).
4. ↑ ^{a b} Schoen, Wilhelm from portal.ehri-project.eu, accessed on May 9, 2016.
5. ↑ Politische Rehabilitation, III portal.ehri-project.eu, accessed on May 9, 2016.
6. ↑ Schoen, Freiherr von, Wilhelm Albrecht. In: Walter Habel (Ed.): Who is who? 12th edition of Degeners Who is it? Arani, Berlin 1955.
7. ↑ EGT celebrates grandson of EGT co-founder - Baron von Schoen egt.de, accessed on May 8, 2016.

predecessor	Office	successor
Erich Hossenfelder	Ambassador of the German Reich in Ethiopia 1932 to March 1935	Hans Kirchholtes
Hans Kurd von Reiswitz and Kaderzin	Envoy / Ambassador of the German Reich in Chile March 1935 to January 20, 1943	Carl von Campe