Wilhelm Haas (diplomat, 1896)

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Wilhelm Haas in 1951

Wilhelm Haas (born September 4, 1896 in Bremen ; died January 11, 1981 there ) was a German diplomat in the Weimar Republic , was dismissed during the Nazi era in 1937 and later became Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany .

Life

Wilhelm Haas was the son of a businessman and attended the New Gymnasium in Bremen. The religious orientation in his parents' house was Protestant. From August 1914 to January 1919 he was a soldier and participant in the First World War , most recently in the rank of lieutenant. He then studied law at the Universities of Marburg and Freiburg im Breisgau . After completing his studies, he worked as a trainee in a shipping company and passed his legal traineeship in 1921. He completed his doctorate in 1922. In the same year he joined the Foreign Service as an attaché . His first assignment abroad took him to Paris in 1924 . From 1925 he was employed as a legation secretary at the German embassy in Addis Ababa . In 1927 he worked at the Consulate General in Shanghai and, from 1929, at the Legation in Beijing . He then worked as secretary of the German League of Nations delegation in Geneva . A political coup by the NSDAP in 1933 pushed him out of his position as managing director of the German-Japanese Society (DJG), which was re-established in 1928 . The objective pursued was to bring this organization into line according to the National Socialist model, because Wilhelm Haas' wife, Ursula née Corwegh (1907–1994), was of Jewish origin. He was replaced by Friedrich Hack (1887–1949) and the secretary of the Japanese naval attaché in Berlin Sakai Naoe (1900–1993). Despite this approach, Haas became commercial attaché head of the economic department of the German embassy in Tokyo in 1934 . Ambassador to Tokyo at this time was Herbert von Dirksen (1882–1955). Above all, the representatives of the NSDAP foreign organization working at the embassy demanded that his wife should no longer be invited to events. Because of this, individual embassy employees who were “racist” had repeatedly started anti-Jewish attacks and subliminal denigrations against him. By running these forces, Haas was retired in 1937. But at short notice through Herbert von Dirksen's mediation he got a position as representative of IG Farben in Beijing in Manchukuo and was able to stay with his family in China.

After the war, Wilhelm Haas was interned on site and returned to Germany via Switzerland in 1947. Here he became State Councilor of the Senate of Bremen . From 1949 he was seconded to the Federal Chancellery and from November 25, 1949 worked there as the head of the “organizational office for consular and economic representation abroad”. Here he was commissioned to submit proposals for the design of a future federal administration for the external representation of the FRG and the possible staffing of the necessary positions. Already in the first phase of the development, he was there as HR manager and was allowed to submit his concept to the Federal Chancellery on December 19, 1950. In doing so, he was guided by two premises. On the one hand, to put as few pre-stressed employees from the Ribbentrop Ministry as possible on the list of candidates and still have enough technically experienced staff available. And secondly, to also consider female applicants. As early as January 1951, Haas and Herbert Blankenhorn (1904–1991) informed the representatives of the Political Committee of the Allied High Commission about German plans for future foreign representation. On March 14, 1951, Konrad Adenauer then decreed that the Department for Foreign Affairs be detached from the Chancellery and converted into the Foreign Office . At the same time, Adenauer, the first foreign minister of the FRG, took over, while Haas kept his position as head of human resources in the new authority. But it did not take long and the criticism of Adenauer's management style, but above all of his “patronage” became louder and louder. In the summer of 1951 there was an open break between the two when Adenauer repeatedly wanted to push through his personal policy priorities. In his function as head of human resources at the Foreign Office, Haas had refused to put several CDU party politicians in foreign posts without having the necessary professional skills. Haas was then removed from office in July 1951. His successor was Herbert Dittmann (1904–1965).

In May 1952 Wilhelm Haas was the first ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Turkey with his business seat in Ankara . His successor was Fritz Oellers (1903–1977) in 1956 . After resuming diplomatic relations with the USSR , Haas went to Moscow as ambassador in 1956 . During this time he openly criticized the Ostpolitik of Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer . His successor in Moscow was Hans Kroll (1893-1967). From 1958 until his retirement in 1961, Haas was ambassador to Japan . His successor Fritz van Briessen (1906–1987) was here. Until autumn 1971, Haas was also president of the “ Society for the Study of Eastern Europe ”.

On leaving Japan, Haas received the Order of the Rising Sun, First Class ; as early as 1954 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit with a Star . The city of Bremen has dedicated a street to him in his residential district of St. Magnus .

Wilhelm Haas and Ursula Haas were married to four sons, including the diplomat Wilhelm Haas , who became German ambassador to Israel in 1985 .

Wilhelm Haas died on January 11, 1981 in Bremen.

Fonts

  • Contribution to the history of the establishment of the Foreign Service of the Federal Republic of Germany . Introduction by the Foreign Office, private printing (financed by the Foreign Office), Bremen 1969

literature

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Haas (diplomate, 1896)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Documentation by the Berlin German-Japanese Society; in: www.djg-berlin.de/djg-Berlin/geschichte; and archive of the German Society for Natural History and Ethnology of East Asia (OAG) in: http://oag.jp
  2. ↑ Eckart Conze, Norbert Frei, Peter Hayes, Moshe Zimmermann: The office and the past . Karl Blessing Verlag, Munich 2010, p. 385 f.
  3. ^ 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 , p. 150f.
  4. ↑ Eckart Conze, Norbert Frei, Peter Hayes, Moshe Zimmermann: The office and the past . Karl Blessing Verlag, Munich 2010, p. 463ff.
  5. ↑ Werner Röder and Herbert A. Strauss: Biographical handbook of German-speaking emigration after 1933–1945 . KG Saur Verlag, Munich 1999, p. 259
  6. ↑ Someone in the house. FOREIGN OFFICE / NS DIPLOMATS OF SPIEGEL 14/1971
personal data
SURNAME Haas, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH 4th September 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH January 11, 1981
Place of death Bremen