Ernst von Weizsäcker
Encyclopedia
Ernst Freiherr von Weizsäcker (May 25, 1882 – August 4, 1951) was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 diplomat
Diplomat
A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...

 and politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

. He served as State Secretary at the Foreign Office
Foreign Office (Germany)
The Foreign Office is the foreign ministry of Germany, a federal agency responsible for both the country's foreign politics and its relationship with the European Union. From 1871 to 1919, it was led by a Foreign Secretary, and since 1919, it has been led by the Foreign Minister of Germany...

 from 1938 to 1943, and as German Ambassador
Ambassador
An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....

 to the Holy See
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...

 from 1943 to 1945. He was a member of the prominent Weizsäcker
Weizsäcker
The Weizsäcker family was and is influential over the span of several generations, hailing from the former Kingdom of Württemberg. Their members include a Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Württemberg, a President of Germany, a leading diplomat, a prominent environmental scientist, and the...

 family, and the father of German President Richard von Weizsäcker
Richard von Weizsäcker
Richard Karl Freiherr von Weizsäcker , known as Richard von Weizsäcker, is a German politician . He served as Governing Mayor of West Berlin from 1981 to 1984, and as President of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1984 to 1994...

 and physicist and philosopher Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker
Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker
Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker was a German physicist and philosopher. He was the longest-living member of the research team which performed nuclear research in Germany during the Second World War, under Werner Heisenberg's leadership...

.

Early life and active naval career

Weizsäcker was born in Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

 to Karl Hugo von Weizsäcker, who would become Minister President (Prime Minister) of the Kingdom of Württemberg
Kingdom of Württemberg
The Kingdom of Württemberg was a state that existed from 1806 to 1918, located in present-day Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was a continuation of the Duchy of Württemberg, which came into existence in 1495...

 and raised to personal nobility in 1897, and Paula von Meibom. In 1911 he married Marianne von Graevenitz, who belonged to the old nobility. In 1916 he became a Freiherr
Freiherr
The German titles Freiherr and Freifrau and Freiin are titles of nobility, used preceding a person's given name or, after 1919, before the surname...

 (Baron), as his father and his family were raised to the inheritable nobility, less than two years before the fall of the local monarchy.

In 1900, Weizsäcker joined the Kaiserliche Marine
Kaiserliche Marine
The Imperial German Navy was the German Navy created at the time of the formation of the German Empire. It existed between 1871 and 1919, growing out of the small Prussian Navy and Norddeutsche Bundesmarine, which primarily had the mission of coastal defense. Kaiser Wilhelm II greatly expanded...

 (Imperial German Navy) to become an officer, serving mainly in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. In 1916, he served as Flag Lieutenant to Admiral Reinhard Scheer
Reinhard Scheer
Reinhard Scheer was an Admiral in the German Kaiserliche Marine. Scheer joined the navy in 1879 as an officer cadet; he progressed through the ranks, commanding cruisers and battleships, as well as major staff positions on land. At the outbreak of World War I, Scheer was the commander of the II...

 aboard the German flagship Friedrich der Grosse
SMS Friedrich der Grosse (1911)
SMS Friedrich der Grosse "SMS" stands for "Seiner Majestät Schiff" was the second vessel of the of battleships of the German Imperial Navy. Friedrich der GrossesOr Große in German, with a "sharp S"; see ß...

during the Battle of Jutland
Battle of Jutland
The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only...

. In 1917, during the latter portion of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 he earned the Iron Cross
Iron Cross
The Iron Cross is a cross symbol typically in black with a white or silver outline that originated after 1219 when the Kingdom of Jerusalem granted the Teutonic Order the right to combine the Teutonic Black Cross placed above a silver Cross of Jerusalem....

 (both classes) and was promoted to Korvettenkapitän (equivalent to U.K and U.S. naval officer grades of Lieutenant Commander
Lieutenant Commander
Lieutenant Commander is a commissioned officer rank in many navies. The rank is superior to a lieutenant and subordinate to a commander...

) the following year. He was a member of the Naval Staff led by Admiral Reinhard Scheer
Reinhard Scheer
Reinhard Scheer was an Admiral in the German Kaiserliche Marine. Scheer joined the navy in 1879 as an officer cadet; he progressed through the ranks, commanding cruisers and battleships, as well as major staff positions on land. At the outbreak of World War I, Scheer was the commander of the II...

 from August 1918. From June 1919 to April 1920, he served as naval attaché to the Hague.

Diplomatic career

Weizsäcker joined the German Foreign Service in 1920. He was appointed as Consul
Consul (representative)
The political title Consul is used for the official representatives of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, and to facilitate trade and friendship between the peoples of the two countries...

 to Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

 in 1921, as Councillor in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

 in 1924 and was stationed in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

 from 1927. He became head of the department for disarmament in 1928, and was appointed as Envoy
Envoy
Envoy may refer to:*an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary*a Special Envoy*a diplomat in general*Envoy , the British Vauxhall cars for Canadian market in 1960-'70*Envoy , a document reader and document file format...

 to Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...

 in 1931 and to Bern in 1933. In 1936 as Ambassador to Bern, Weizsäcker played a key role in stripping Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...

 of his German citizenship. He became Director of the Policy Department at the Foreign Office in 1937 and the following year he was appointed as Staatssekretär ("State Secretary") -- the second ranking official after the Foreign Minister in the German Foreign Office.

He was encouraged by his superior to join the ruling NSDAP party, which he did in 1938, and he was also awarded an honorary rank in the SS. In 1938, Weizsäcker was opposed to the general trend in German foreign policy of attacking Czechoslovakia out of the fear that it might cause a general war that Germany would lose; Weizsäcker had no moral objections to the idea of destroying Czechoslovakia and was only opposed to the timing of the attack. Through Weizsäcker had some contacts with members of the German opposition, during his interrogations after the war, he never claimed to be a member of the resistance. It was only after he himself was brought to trial
Ministries Trial
The Ministries Trial was the eleventh of the twelve trials for war crimes the U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Nuremberg after the end of World War II. These twelve trials were all held before U.S...

, that Weizsäcker first claimed to be an out and out anti-Nazi, working with all his heart and might to overthrow the Nazi regime. On August 19, 1938, Weizsäcker wrote a memo to the Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop
Joachim von Ribbentrop
Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 until 1945. He was later hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg Trials.-Early life:...

 stating:
"I again opposed the whole theory of (an attack on Czechoslovakia) and observed that we should have to wait political developments until the English lose interest in the Czech matter and would tolerate our action, before we could tackle the affair without risk".
Weizsäcker never sent his memo to Ribbentrop. Together with the Abwehr
Abwehr
The Abwehr was a German military intelligence organisation from 1921 to 1944. The term Abwehr was used as a concession to Allied demands that Germany's post-World War I intelligence activities be for "defensive" purposes only...

chief, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris
Wilhelm Canaris
Wilhelm Franz Canaris was a German admiral, head of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service, from 1935 to 1944 and member of the German Resistance.- Early life and World War I :...

, and the Army Chief of Staff, General Ludwig Beck
Ludwig Beck
Generaloberst Ludwig August Theodor Beck was a German general and Chief of the German General Staff during the early years of the Nazi regime in Germany before World War II....

, Weizsäcker was a leader of the "anti-war" group in the German government, which was determined to avoid a war in 1938 that it felt Germany would lose. This group was not necessarily committed to the overthrow of the regime, but was loosely allied to another, more radical group, the "anti-Nazi" faction centered around Colonel Hans Oster
Hans Oster
Hans Oster was a German Army general, deputy head of the Abwehr under Wilhelm Canaris, and an opponent of Adolf Hitler and Nazism. He was a leading figure of the German resistance from 1938 to 1943.-Early career:...

 and Hans Bernd Gisevius
Hans Bernd Gisevius
Hans Bernd Gisevius was a German diplomat and intelligence officer during World War II. A strong opponent of the Nazi regime, he served as a liaison in Zürich between Allen Dulles, station chief for the American OSS and the German Resistance forces in Germany.-Pre World War II:Gisevius was born...

, which wanted to use the crisis as an excuse for executing a putsch to overthrow the Nazi regime. The divergent aims between these two factions produced considerable tensions. The historian Eckart Conze stated in a 2010 interview:
"An overthrow of Hitler was out of the question. The group wanted to avoid a major war and the potential catastrophic consequences for Germany. Their goal wasn't to get rid of the dictator but, as they saw it, to bring him to his senses".


He was promoted to SS-Brigadeführer
Brigadeführer
SS-Brigadeführer was an SS rank that was used in Nazi Germany between the years of 1932 and 1945. Brigadeführer was also an SA rank....

 on January 30, 1942.

Ambassador to the Vatican

After the German defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between 23 August 1942 and 2 February 1943...

 in 1943 and the changing German war fortunes, and following his own request, Weizsäcker resigned as State Secretary and was appointed German Ambassador to the Holy See
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...

 from 1943 to 1945.

When received by the Cardinal Secretary of State
Cardinal Secretary of State
The Cardinal Secretary of State—officially Secretary of State of His Holiness The Pope—presides over the Holy See, usually known as the "Vatican", Secretariat of State, which is the oldest and most important dicastery of the Roman Curia...

 Luigi Maglione on January 6, 1944, Weizsäcker stated, "If Germany as a bulwark against communism should fall, all of Europe will become communist." To this, the cardinal replied, "What a misfortune, that Germany with its antireligious policies has stirred up such concerns." Similar representations were repeated by Weizsäcker to Monsignore Giovanni Battista Montini
Pope Paul VI
Paul VI , born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Second Vatican Council, he decided to continue it...

 (the later Pope Paul VI).

Weizsäcker's record at the Vatican was mixed. While in Berlin, he had refused to accept a Papal note protesting the treatment of occupied Poland. During the German occupation of Rome, Weizsäcker did little to stop the deportation of Jews. However, he did help individuals to avoid persecution, and he helped to free Rome from all German military bases in an effort to discourage Allied bombing of the city. He also advised the Foreign Office that drafting Jews for labor camps inside Italy might be less likely to draw a papal protest than deporting them. According to Richard J. Evans
Richard J. Evans
Richard John Evans is a British academic and historian, prominently known for his history of Germany.-Life:Evans was born in London, of Welsh parentage, and is now Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge and President of Wolfson College...

, Weizsäcker shared the opinion of Ulrich von Hassell
Ulrich von Hassell
Ulrich von Hassell was a German diplomat during World War II. A member of the German Resistance against German dictator Adolf Hitler, Hassell was executed in the aftermath of the failed July 20 plot.- Family :...

 that the Final Solution was a "devilish campaign".

"His messages and documents to Berlin were nothing but lies," his coworker Albrecht von Kessel later said. In those messages to Berlin, Weizsäcker purposely painted Pope Pius XII as mild, diplomatic, indecisive, and pro-German, in order to help the Pope and to avoid anti-German sentiment in Italy. Like the commanding Waffen SS General Karl Wolff
Karl Wolff
Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff was a high-ranking member of the Nazi Schutzstaffel , ultimately holding the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen-SS. He became Chief of Personal Staff to the Reichsführer and SS Liaison Officer to Hitler until his replacement in 1943...

, Weizsäcker was clearly opposed to Hitler’s plan to occupy the Vatican, during which, Weizsäcker feared, the Pope could have been shot, "fleeing while avoiding arrest"
Weizsäcker continued to present the Vatican with anti-communist slogans, and both threatened a separate Russian-German peace and requested from Monsignore Domenico Tardini the immediate mounting of a Papal peace initiative to stop the war in the West so Germany could finish Communism in the East. (Tardini saw in this a transparent effort to obtain a military solution). Like several other German officials, Weizsäcker attempted to negotiate the survival of some segment of the government and to avoid the "unconditional surrender" of Germany, but his efforts to bring up the topic of "a German transition government, and the likelihood of his being a member of it," failed.

Postwar events

After the end of the war, Weizsäcker initially remained in the Vatican City with his wife, as a guest of the Pope and a member of the diplomatic corps
Diplomatic corps
The diplomatic corps or corps diplomatique is the collective body of foreign diplomats accredited to a particular country or body.The diplomatic corps may, in certain contexts, refer to the collection of accredited heads of mission who represent their countries in another state or country...

. He did not return to Germany until 1946.

Weizsäcker was arrested on July 25, 1947, in Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...

 in connection with the Ministries Trial
Ministries Trial
The Ministries Trial was the eleventh of the twelve trials for war crimes the U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Nuremberg after the end of World War II. These twelve trials were all held before U.S...

, also known as the Wilhelmstrasse Trial, after the location of the German Foreign Office in Berlin. These American military tribunals started before and finished during the Berlin blockade
Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War and the first resulting in casualties. During the multinational occupation of post-World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway and road access to the sectors of Berlin under Allied...

 confrontation with the Soviets and proceeded without participation of the USSR; they were also much milder in conduct and outcome than the first series of war crimes trials in 1946. No European judges were involved in the trial, which was very controversial because Weizsäcker was considered by many to be closely associated with the anti-Nazi resistance and a moderate force at the Foreign Office during the war; Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

 called his trial a "deadly error".

Weizsäcker was charged with active cooperation with the deportation of French Jews to Auschwitz, as a crime against humanity. Weizsäcker, with the assistance of his son, the future President of unified Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, Richard von Weizsäcker
Richard von Weizsäcker
Richard Karl Freiherr von Weizsäcker , known as Richard von Weizsäcker, is a German politician . He served as Governing Mayor of West Berlin from 1981 to 1984, and as President of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1984 to 1994...

, who appeared as his assistant defence counsel (Richard was a law student during the trial), claimed that he had no knowledge of the purpose for which Auschwitz had been designed and believed that Jewish prisoners would face less danger if deported to the East.

In 1949, the Americans sentenced him to 7 years in prison (one of the three judges voted to acquit him), but the same year, the sentence was reduced to five years, and the following year, he was given an amnesty
Amnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...

which obliterated any legal remembrance of the sentence, and he was freed. He subsequently published his memoirs, in which he portrayed himself as a supporter of the resistance.

He died of a stroke in 1951. In 2010, a report issued by the historian Eckart Conze about the role of the Foreign Office under the Third Reich stated in an interview about Weizsäcker:
"The legend stems from individuals associated with the Weizsäcker defense. Former diplomats, such as the brothers Erich and Theo Kordt, played a key role in the effort, as did other members of the traditional upper class, which Weizsäcker represented. One of them was his defense lawyer, Hellmut Becker, the son of the Prussian culture minister, Carl Heinrich Becker, and another was Marion Gräfin Dönhoff, a young journalist who sharply criticized the trial in Die Zeit. They all knew that if they succeeded in exonerating Weizsäcker, they would have rehabilitated the national conservative, aristocratic and bourgeois upper class."

Further reading

  • Chadwick, Owen
    Owen Chadwick
    William Owen Chadwick, OM, KBE, FBA, FRSE is a British professor, writer and prominent historian of Christianity. He was also a rugby union player.-Early life and education:Chadwick was born in Bromley in 1916...

    . 1977. "Weizsäcker, the Vatican and the Jews of Rome". Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 28(2): 378.
  • Hill, Leonidas. 1967. "The Vatican Embassy of Ernst von Weizsäcker, 1943-1945". The Journal of Modern History. 39(2): 138-159.
  • Weizsäcker family
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