Wilhelm Waßmuss

Wilhelm Waßmuß in Persian costume (1915)

Wilhelm Waßmuß (born February 14, 1880 in Ohlendorf , † November 29, 1931 in Berlin ) was a German consul and revolutionary agent in Persia.

Life and professional development

Wilhelm Waßmuß was born as the eldest son of a farmer on a medium-sized farm in the northern Harz foreland. His parents were a long-established "yeoman family". After attending primary school, he went to the nearby Ratsgymnasium in Goslar in 1893 . He was a hard-working student with a wide range of interests, open-minded and helpful, sporty and adventurous. Foreign languages ​​and countries had a particular fascination for him. He learned Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Italian while still at school. He was also able to communicate in English and French. He passed his Abitur in 1900.

More because of pressure from his parents, Wilhelm Waßmuß began studying law in Marburg after finishing school . In the same year he moved to the university in Berlin . His goal was to make something of his life, to achieve a respected position in society. When he found out that the Federal Foreign Office had problems with young talent in the field of interpreting services, he enrolled in the seminar for oriental languages ​​in Berlin and studied Arabic and Moroccan parallel to law. In the winter semester of 1902 he moved to the University of Göttingen , where he also completed his law degree. He passed his first state examination in law at the Higher Regional Court in Celle and began at the beginning of 1904 as a trainee lawyer at the Royal District Court in Zellerfeld , district of Goslar. In the same year he was transferred to Berlin, where he passed his diploma examination for Arabic and Moroccan in August. In October 1904 he started his one-year voluntary service with the III. Sailors Artillery Department in Lehe. This force was built up mainly for overseas operations. During his military service, he asked the Foreign Office whether it was possible to work in the field of interpreting services and what requirements would be tied to it. During the interview, Wilhelm Waßmuß was offered a position at the consulate in Zanzibar , which he accepted. His first foreign station was Madagascar .

On January 8, 1906, he began his service in Zanzibar. At this time, the transformation of the German Empire as a possible “power of hope” for African native tribes was already underway, and he learned the national language Swahili very quickly. His superiors were satisfied with his commitment and when in 1909 a representation as Vice-Consul in Bushehr on the Persian Gulf was sought for a year , he agreed to represent the incumbent consul Helmuth Listemann (1872-1924). After his return to Madagascar in 1910, he took over the vice consulate in the port city of Tanga in East Africa on October 31, 1910 . But on May 18, 1913, he was sent again to Bushehr, where he took over the acting management of the vice consulate. A difficult political situation prevailed here, which was exacerbated by the fact that Russia and England had discovered this region for their colonial endeavors. Again and again there were uprisings and open hostility of the country's inhabitants against the British presence. The awakening disempowered elites of this region were looking for an ally against the British in Germany. Waßmuß made numerous trips inland and got to know the most important khans. But that earned him multiple suspicions on the British side of espionage or incitement to the local tribes.

At the beginning of 1914 he was transferred to the "regular position of the dragoman " at the German embassy in Cairo . On the way there, Wilhelm Waßmuß learned of the outbreak of the First World War and the associated declaration of war by the English. He then changed his route, hurried via Cairo and Alexandria to Berlin, where he arrived on August 31, 1914.

Persia Mission

Waßmuss' pith helmet from around 1910 (exhibit in the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum ).

In accordance with his duties, Wilhelm Waßmuß reported to his superiors in the Foreign Office in order to be able to visit his ancestral naval unit in Lehe. But in Berlin's Wilhelmstrasse, under the leadership of Max von Oppenheim (1860–1946), the plans for the secret strategy of insurrection - here specifically to “revolutionize the Islamic areas of our enemies” - were already in progress. In the spheres of interest of Russia, England and France, this included influencing the regional population and the local ruling classes through propaganda material, stirring up contradictions and disharmonies against the occupiers, but also did not stop at arms deliveries, money transfers and direct military assistance. This was a method of general warfare approved and required by Kaiser Wilhelm II , which also made use of non-military tools. Immediately, without waiting for his report to the regular troops, Waßmuß was assigned to a quickly assembled expedition group in the direction of Persia / Afghanistan, which was supposed to provoke an uprising against the British in India. The actual practical spirit rector here was the Turkish War Minister Enver Pascha (1881–1929). The departure of the first group of 22 participants, to which Wilhelm Waßmuß belonged, took place on September 6, 1914 from Berlin in the direction of Constantinople. But already there it turned out that individual expedition participants lacked the necessary seriousness for such a mission. Vanities, boasting, chattering, intrigues and, last but not least, debauchery characterized their behavior at the first destination. With the influence of the German ambassador in Constantinople Hans Freiherr von Wangenheim (1859–1915), these "uncertain" candidates were exchanged and Wilhelm Waßmuß was appointed head of the expedition. A second and third group followed with Oskar von Niedermayer (1885–1947) and Werner Otto von Hentig (1886–1984). The von Waßmuss group, to which Oskar von Niedermayer had since joined, reached Baghdad on January 9, 1915 via Aleppo . From here the group split up in order to get to the respective intended areas of operation. While Waßmuss, who had agreed to a vote with Helmuth Listemann in Buschehr, took seven fellow campaigners in the direction of Bushehr and Shiraz in southern Persia, Niedermayer and Hentig continued on through Persia to Afghanistan. Without waiting for approval from Berlin, Ambassador Wangenheim had approved these plans.

On February 1, 1915, the Wassmuss group reached the Persian border. As a precaution he had the passport of a German consul traveling to Shiraz issued at the German consulate in Constantinople. But already after crossing the border he learned that the Persian government could not guarantee the safety of the German expedition members. And the British side had promptly announced that they had dropped any consideration under international law in their area of ​​interest. At this point he did not know that the British side was already aware of the group's plans for Waßmuß. Because the political resident of England on the Gulf Percy Cox offered a reward for his capture and called for the hunt for the German "agent provocateur". On March 5th, a group of armed men on British pay attacked the caravan of Waßmuß and he only escaped through an adventurous escape to Borazjan, 100 km away . The doctor accompanying the group was arrested and the items confiscated included propaganda material, weapons and a list of all the people involved in the project. As a result, on March 9, 1915, an English military command broke into the German consulate in Buschehr in violation of international law, arrested Consul Helmuth Listemann and, while searching the embassy rooms, came into possession of the diplomatic code documents for encrypting messages. This enabled the British side to read the radio messages to Berlin from this point in time.

In the further course, Wilhelm Waßmuß ignited and supported the resistance of the Tangsir , Kashgai and other Persian tribes against the British occupation troops , as instructed, but also driven by the zeal for retaliation after the military defeat in March . In July 1915 he had gathered around 300 armed riders ready to fight. With these he carried out an attack on the summer residence of the English consul general on the night of July 11th to 12th and closed a siege ring around the property. His military opponents were the South Persian Rifles , a unit made up of Persian recruits, trained and commanded by British officers. After approval by the "Committee for the Protection of the Independence of Persia", Persian troops, together with Wilhelm Waßmuss' forces, occupied the British consulate general on November 10, 1915, thereby sealing off the region in southern Persia between Shiraz and Bushehr from British attacks. The plan of revolution was thus completed in this part of Persia. But from then on it was only a matter of time how long the Persian forces could withstand the military pressure of fresh English troops brought in from the sea. On September 11, 1916, Wilhelm Waßmuß set out for Mesopotamia alone, on foot and in local clothing. A few days later he was attacked by robbers and found so badly injured by friends of the Khan that he had to rest for several months in the house of his "savior". The only support he could give while being tied to the sickbed was the preparation of leaflets and letters of motivation to other khans who were friends. On October 30, 1918, the Moudros armistice came about . One month later, in connection with the defeat of Germany in the First World War, Waßmuss received the request to present himself to the Persian authorities within 7 days. Without letting this ultimatum slip by, he set off on his own with his adjutant and two Persian companions to make his way to Tehran . He was held on March 26, 1919 at the northern city gate of Tehran by Persian gendarmes. He escaped his planned imprisonment and condemnation by the English through an intervention from the German side, received safe conduct after unworthy scenes and bureaucratic confusion and arrived back in Ohlendorf on September 20, 1919.

Efforts to make amends

On September 30, 1919, Wilhelm Waßmuß reported back to his employer in the Foreign Office. In the following year he married Irma Luiken in the summer of 1920, successfully passed his still open consul exam and on October 26, 1920 began his service in Department IV (communications department) of the Foreign Office in Berlin. But his experiences in Persia and the moral obligations towards his "comrades-in-arms" did not let him go. In the following years he fought with German authorities to release funds that he had promised the Persian tribes to participate in the resistance against the British. Although the agreements made with the regional partners under his leadership were beyond doubt in office, Germany was only willing to pay a one-off severance payment of English 300. Pound to pay. Thereupon Wilhelm Waßmuß made a very adventurous decision. Since his two most important Persian comrades-in-arms were no longer alive as a result of all the complications after his departure, he suggested to the heirs that they use the money from the severance pay to set up an experimental farm, train the tribal people in its management and only pay a small sum immediately to be paid out in cash.

With this idea he returned to Bushehr in 1924, bought land, brought the equipment needed for cultivation with him from Europe and founded a farm in Tschagodek, today Choghadak. Waßmuß thus became a local development pioneer. He saw it as his new goal in life to teach the khan a peaceful way of earning a living and to create opportunities to change their nomadic life. With the proceeds of the agricultural products he wanted to pay the tribes and ultimately keep his financial promises in this way. The farm was then to become the property of the tribes "after a number of years, when everything is set up". But despite unspeakable efforts, the successes remained manageable. On the one hand, the heirs of the khans lacked patience, on the other hand, the project failed due to local disputes that the British repeatedly fueled. In the end he remained without victory even in peacetime and returned to Berlin on April 1, 1931, a broken man. Here he died of a heart attack just six months later on November 29, 1931.

The parallels between the activities of TE Lawrence on the Arabian Peninsula and in Palestine and of Wilhelm Waßmuß in Persia meant that Waßmuß was called the "German Lawrence" by the British.

Honors

• The Konsul-Waßmuß-Straße in Ohlendorf is named after Waßmuß.
• A memorial stone at a bus stop in Ohlendorf reminds of the diplomat with a plaque by the Schreitel brothers .

literature

• Siegfried Bachmann: Wassmuss, Wilhelm. In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck , Günter Scheel (ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon - 19th and 20th centuries . Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hannover 1996, ISBN 3-7752-5838-8 , p. 640-641 .
• Hendrik Göttrup: Wilhelm Wassmuss: The German Lawrence . Metropol Verlag, Berlin, 2013, ISBN 978-3-86331-137-7
• Stefan M. Kreutzer: Wilhelm Waßmuß - A German Lawrence. In Wilfried Loth, Marc Hanisch: First World War and Jihad. The Germans and the revolutionization of the Orient. Oldenbourg, Munich 2014, pp. 91–117.
• Stefan M. Kreutzer: Jihad for the German Emperor , Ares Verlag Graz, 2012,
• Dagobert von Mikusch: Waßmuss, the German Lawrence. Based on the diaries and notes of the deceased consul, German and English sources and the book by Christopher Sykes which was published under the same title. Paul List Verlag, Leipzig 1937.
• Salvador Oberhaus: German Propaganda in the Orient during World War I , Master's thesis, University of Düsseldorf, 2002,
• Christopher Sykes: Wassmuss "The German Lawrence". Longmans, Green and Co., New York 1936
• Johannes Hürter (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. 5. T – Z, supplements. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 5: Bernd Isphording, Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger. Schöningh, Paderborn u. a. 2014, ISBN 978-3-506-71844-0 , p. 187

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Waßmuß  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Kerstin Loehr: I want to grow in the world. Article about a film project by director Dirk van den Berg about water must.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Max von Oppenheim, memorandum of August 1914 in: Marc Hanisch, Max von Oppenheim and the revolutionization of the Islamic world as anti-imperial liberation from above, Oldenbourg Verlag Munich 2014, p. 14ff
2. ↑ Marginal notes by the emperor of July 30, 1914 on a telegram from the same day in: Max Montgelas, Walter Schücking (Ed.) German documents on the outbreak of war in 5 volumes Berlin 1919, Volume 2, pp. 133f.
3. ↑ "Memorandum of November 14, 1914 on the Proclamation of the Holy War" (Jihad) in: Wilfried Loth, Marc Hanisch (Ed.): First World War and Jihad - The Germans and the Revolutionization of the Orient and Stefan M. Kreutzer: Jihad for the German emperor . Max von Oppenheim and the reorientation of the Orient (1914–1918) Ares Verlag Graz 2012
4. ↑ Wilfried Loth, Marc Hanisch (ed.) First World War and Jihad - The Germans and the Revolutionization of the Orient, Oldenbourg Verlag Munich 2014, p. 100
5. ^ Matthias Friese, Stefan Geilen (ed.) Germans in Afghanistan. The adventures of Oskar von Niedermayer in the Hindu Kush, Aqua-Verlag Cologne, 2002
6. ↑ This illegal act was then concealed by the British secret service by bringing information to the public that in the event of a brief arrest of Wilhelm Waßmuß, the cipher documents had come into British hands; Cf. Stefan M. Kreutzer, Wilhelm Waßmuß - Ein deutscher Lawrence, in: Wilfried Loth, Marc Hanisch (Ed.) First World War and Jihad, Oldenbourg Verlag Munich, 2014, p. 98ff.
7. ^ War diary of Wilhelm Waßmuß (1916–1918) p. 2, in: Wilfried Loth, Marc Hanisch (Ed.) First World War and Jihad, Oldenbourg Verlag Munich, 2014, p. 112f.
8. ↑ Dagobert von Mikusch, Waßmuß der German Lawrence. Based on the diaries and notes of the deceased consul, German and English sources and the book by Christopher Sykes, published under the same title, Paul List Verlag Leipzig 1937, p. 294f.
9. ↑ Dagobert von Mikusch, Waßmuss, the German Lawrence, Paul List Verlag Leipzig 1937, p. 314f.
10. ↑ Christopher Sykes: Wassmuss "The German Lawrence". Longmans, Green and Co., New York 1936
11. ↑ I want to grow in the world on newsclick.de

predecessor	Office	successor
	Consul of the German Empire in Bushehr , Persia 1909 and 1913–1914	Helmuth Listemann