The Federal Foreign Office (german: Auswärtiges Amt, ), abbreviated AA, is the
foreign ministry In many countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the government department responsible for the state's diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral relations affairs as well as for providing support for a country's citizens who are abroad. The entit ...
of the
Federal Republic of Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
, a
federal agency responsible for both the country's foreign policy and its relationship with the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been ...
. It is a
cabinet-level ministry. Since December 2021,
Annalena Baerbock has served as
Foreign Minister
A foreign affairs minister or minister of foreign affairs (less commonly minister for foreign affairs) is generally a cabinet minister in charge of a state's foreign policy and relations. The formal title of the top official varies between co ...
, succeeding
Heiko Maas
Heiko Josef Maas (; born 19 September 1966) is a German lawyer and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who served as the Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs (2018–2021) and as the Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protecti ...
. The primary seat of the ministry is at the ' square in the
Mitte
Mitte () is the first and most central borough of Berlin. The borough consists of six sub-entities: Mitte proper, Gesundbrunnen, Hansaviertel, Moabit, Tiergarten and Wedding.
It is one of the two boroughs (the other being Friedrichshain-Kreu ...
district, the historic centre of
Berlin.
The term was the name of the Foreign Office established in 1870 by the
North German Confederation, which then became the
German Empire's Foreign Office in 1871. It is still the name of the German foreign ministry today. From 1871 to 1919, the Foreign Office was led by a Foreign Secretary, and since 1919, it has been led by the Foreign Minister of Germany.
History
Early years
Foundation
The was established in 1870 to form the
foreign policy
A state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterally or through ...
of the
North German Confederation, and from 1871 of the
German Empire. The Foreign Office was originally led by a
secretary of state (therefore not called a ministry), while the
Chancellor
Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law co ...
, who usually also held the office of
Prussian
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs, remained in charge of foreign affairs.
Bismarck
In the first years of the German nation-state under
Otto von Bismarck
Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (, ; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898), born Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, was a conservative German statesman and diplomat. From his origins in the upper class of ...
, the Foreign Office on
Wilhelmstrasse
Wilhelmstrasse (german: Wilhelmstraße, see ß) is a major thoroughfare in the central Mitte and Kreuzberg districts of Berlin, Germany. Until 1945, it was recognised as the centre of the government, first of the Kingdom of Prussia, later of ...
No. 76 next to the
Reich Chancellery
The Reich Chancellery (german: Reichskanzlei) was the traditional name of the office of the Chancellor of Germany (then called ''Reichskanzler'') in the period of the German Reich from 1878 to 1945. The Chancellery's seat, selected and prepared s ...
had two departments: one for political affairs and the other for economic, legal and consular matters. After Bismarck's dismissal in 1890, another department for colonial policy was established, spun off as the separate ''
Reichskolonialamt'' in 1907. Bismarck in order to maintain his control of the appointed his son
Herbert von Bismarck as State Secretary. That Bismarck appointed his son as State Secretary reflected his determination to be his own foreign minister, and his need for an utterly loyal man to run the when he was not around. Bismarck would not accept opinions contrary to his own, and only those diplomats who were devoted to him rose to high rank. Bismarck greatly valued accurate information, and as such diplomats tended to report what they believed to be the truth back to Berlin.
An exclusive club
Right from the start, the was very socially exclusive. To join, one needed a university degree, preferably in
jurisprudence
Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning ...
and needed to prove that one had a considerable private income. In 1880, a candidate had to prove that he had a private income of at least 6,000
marks
Marks may refer to:
Business
* Mark's, a Canadian retail chain
* Marks & Spencer, a British retail chain
* Collective trade marks, trademarks owned by an organisation for the benefit of its members
* Marks & Co, the inspiration for the novel '' ...
/annum in order to join; by 1900, the requirement was 10,000 marks/annum and by 1912, a candidate needed at least 15,000 marks/annum to join. This requirement explains why so many German diplomats married richer women because without the wealth of their wives they would never had been able to join the '.
The income requirement to enter the AA was only dropped in 1918. Aristocrats were very much overrepresented in the '. During the Imperial period, 69% of the 548 men who served in the were
noblemen, and every single ambassador during the
German Reich
German ''Reich'' (lit. German Realm, German Empire, from german: Deutsches Reich, ) was the constitutional name for the German nation state that existed from 1871 to 1945. The ''Reich'' became understood as deriving its authority and sovereignty ...
was an
aristocrat
The aristocracy is historically associated with "hereditary" or "ruling" social class. In many states, the aristocracy included the upper class of people (aristocrats) with hereditary rank and titles. In some, such as ancient Greece, ancient R ...
. The most important department by far was the Political Department which between 1871 and 1918 was 61% aristocratic; middle-class men tended to serve in the less important Legal, Trade and
Colonial Departments. In the 19th century, it was believed that only aristocrats had the proper social standing and graces to correctly represent the ''Reich'' abroad as ambassadors, which explains why no commoner was ever appointed ambassador during the Imperial era.
Additionally, during the entire duration of the "old" from 1871 to 1945, Roman Catholics were underrepresented in the ', comprising between 15 and 20% of the AA's personnel. The was largely a
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
institution with Protestant candidates favored over Catholic candidates when it came to recruitment. Even more underrepresented were the Jews. During the Imperial period from 1871 to 1918, the had only three Jewish members, plus four Jews who had converted to Lutheranism in order to improve their career prospects. If Jews were not formally excluded, Jewish candidates were rarely accepted because of a climate of snobbish
anti-Semitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
, where Jews were considered to be too pushy, vulgar and lacking in social graces to be diplomats. There were also meritocratic elements within the AA. Besides for the income requirement, to enter the AA during the Imperial period, only candidates with the best grades at university and who knew two foreign languages were considered, and to join one had to pass what was widely considered to be one of the toughest diplomatic entrance exams in the world.
Wilhelm II
The reign of Emperor Wilhelm II was from 1888 to 1918.
In the years preceding
World War I, the was responsible for the country's foreign policy under Emperor
Wilhelm II
, house = Hohenzollern
, father = Frederick III, German Emperor
, mother = Victoria, Princess Royal
, religion = Lutheranism (Prussian United)
, signature = Wilhelm II, German Emperor Signature-.svg
Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor ...
, and played a key role in the ''Reichs pursuit of ''
Weltpolitik'' (World Politics), under which Germany sought to become the world's dominant power.
The was split into three factions competing against one another, namely one faction of men loyal to Bismarck, another faction loyal to
Friedrich von Holstein, and yet another faction led by
Prince Philipp von Eulenburg and Prince
Bernhard von Bülow
Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin, Prince of Bülow (german: Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin Fürst von Bülow ; 3 May 1849 – 28 October 1929) was a German statesman who served as the foreign minister for three years and then as the chancellor of t ...
, who would later become chancellor. This constant plotting and scheming between these factions weakened the execution of German foreign policy. As a whole, the Wilhelmstrasse was never entirely in charge of foreign policy in the
German Empire, but was instead just one out of several agencies, albeit a very important one that made and executed foreign policy.
In the years 1904–1907, the ''Reich'' attempted to form an alliance with the United States on the basis of the supposedly shared fear of the "
Yellow Peril
The Yellow Peril (also the Yellow Terror and the Yellow Specter) is a racial color metaphor that depicts the peoples of East and Southeast Asia as an existential danger to the Western world. As a psychocultural menace from the Eastern wor ...
" with Wilhelm writing to the American President
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
a series of letters telling him that Germany and the United States must join forces to stop the "yellow peril", especially Japan from conquering the world. It took the diplomats a long time to tell Wilhelm that Roosevelt was a
Japanophile
Japanophilia is the philia of Japanese culture, people and history. In Japanese, the term for Japanophile is , with "" equivalent to the English prefix 'pro-' and "", meaning "Japan" (as in the word for Japan ). The term was first used as earl ...
who was not impressed with Wilhelm's call for an alliance based on anti-Asian racism.
Ottomans and the Armenians
A nation with whom the was much concerned during the Imperial period was the
Ottoman empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
, especially during the
Armenian genocide
The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through th ...
. In 1915, the German ambassador to the
Sublime Porte
The Sublime Porte, also known as the Ottoman Porte or High Porte ( ota, باب عالی, Bāb-ı Ālī or ''Babıali'', from ar, باب, bāb, gate and , , ), was a synecdoche for the central government of the Ottoman Empire.
History
The na ...
, Baron
Hans von Wangenheim told the American ambassador to the Sublime Porte,
Henry Morgenthau Sr.: "I do not blame the Turks for what they are doing to the Armenians... They are entirely justified".
[ Balakian, Peter. '' The Burning Tigris'', New York: HarperCollins, 2003 page 285.] On September 28, 1915 Count
Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff
Johann Heinrich Graf von Bernstorff (14 November 1862 – 6 October 1939) was a German politician and ambassador to the United States from 1908 to 1917.
Early life
Born in 1862 in London, he was the son of one of the most powerful politician ...
, the ambassador in Washington, D.C., stated to American journalists that reports of a systematic campaign of extermination against the Armenian minority in the Ottoman empire were all "pure inventions", that these reports were all the work of British propaganda and no such campaign of extermination was taking place.
[ Wangenheim's successor as ambassador to the Sublime Porte, Count Paul Wolff Metternich, was appalled by the Armenian genocide, and, unlike Wangenheim, Metternich was prepared to speak out against the genocide. In August 1916, the triumvirate known as the Three Pashas, which ruled the Ottoman empire, informed the German government that if Count Metternich was not recalled, he would be declared ''persona non grata''. Metternich was promptly recalled from Constantinople rather risk a public relations disaster which potentially could damage German-Ottoman relations in the middle of the war. As the Ottoman empire today would be considered a third world country with almost no modern industry, the Ottoman government was entirely dependent upon weapons from Germany to fight World War I, giving the ''Reich'' a powerful form of leverage to apply against the Ottomans on behalf of the Armenians if only the political will in Berlin had been present. In a 2015 speech, the German president ]Joachim Gauck
Joachim Wilhelm Gauck (; born 24 January 1940) is a German politician and civil rights activist who served as President of Germany from 2012 to 2017. A former Lutheran pastor, he came to prominence as an anti-communist civil rights activist in ...
apologized for his country's inaction, stating that those diplomats who protested against the Armenian genocide were "ignored" by the leadership of ', who valued good relations with the Ottoman empire more than they did the lives of the Armenians.
Post-imperial period
In 1919, the Foreign Office was reorganised as the and a modern structure was established. It was now under the authority of a foreign minister
A foreign affairs minister or minister of foreign affairs (less commonly minister for foreign affairs) is generally a cabinet minister in charge of a state's foreign policy and relations. The formal title of the top official varies between co ...
, though still called ''Amt'' for traditional reasons. In 1922, the Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau was assassinated because he was a Jew. The most notable head of the Foreign Office during the Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...
was Gustav Stresemann
Gustav Ernst Stresemann (; 10 May 1878 – 3 October 1929) was a German statesman who served as chancellor in 1923 (for 102 days) and as foreign minister from 1923 to 1929, during the Weimar Republic.
His most notable achievement was the reconci ...
, foreign minister from 1923 to 1929, who strived for a reconciliation with the French Third Republic
The French Third Republic (french: Troisième République, sometimes written as ) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 1940 ...
, which earned him—together with Aristide Briand
Aristide Pierre Henri Briand (; 28 March 18627 March 1932) was a French statesman who served eleven terms as Prime Minister of France during the French Third Republic. He is mainly remembered for his focus on international issues and reconcili ...
—the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiology ...
. In an important sign of changed emphasis within the ', in July 1930 , the State Secretary (the number #2 man in the ') and Stresemann's right-hand man was fired and replaced with the "crudely nationalist" Prince (who is not to be confused with his uncle, Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow
Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin, Prince of Bülow (german: Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin Fürst von Bülow ; 3 May 1849 – 28 October 1929) was a German statesman who served as the foreign minister for three years and then as the chancellor of t ...
).[Rothwell, Victor ''The Origins of the Second World War'', Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001 page 30.] The replacement of Schubert with Bülow marked the ascendency of the more nationalistic fraction within the who favored a more confrontational foreign policy with regards to France. In May 1932 Baron Konstantin von Neurath
Konstantin Hermann Karl Freiherr von Neurath (2 February 1873 – 14 August 1956) was a German diplomat and Nazi war criminal who served as Foreign Minister of Germany between 1932 and 1938.
Born to a Swabian noble family, Neurath began his di ...
was appointed foreign minister in the "Cabinet of the President's Friends" headed by Franz von Papen. Neurath continued on as Foreign Minister under the governments of General Kurt von Schleicher
Kurt Ferdinand Friedrich Hermann von Schleicher (; 7 April 1882 – 30 June 1934) was a German general and the last chancellor of Germany (before Adolf Hitler) during the Weimar Republic. A rival for power with Hitler, Schleicher was murdered by ...
and Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
. During the Nazi period, Neurath found himself exposed to increasing competition from Nazi politicians like Alfred Rosenberg and Joachim von Ribbentrop. In February 1938, Hitler fired Neurath and replaced him with Ribbentrop.
Nazi Germany
In 1933, the vast majority of the diplomats serving in the came from upper-class families with a disproportionate number coming from the aristocracy. The overrepresentation of aristocrats together with its overwhelming upper-class character gave the an elitist cachet, and made the into one of the most prestigious institutions in Germany. Because of its upper-class composition, the diplomats could afford extremely expensive clothes, and the men of were generally considered to the best dressed officials in the entire German government, contributing to the ''s glamorous, stylist image. There were no female diplomats, and besides for the women employed as secretaries, clerks and cleaners, the had no female employees. That the men of the formed an elitist group can be seen that every single diplomat had a university degree (before the 1950s, most Germans did not go to university). The requirement that one had to have a university degree to enter the effectively guaranteed upper-class dominance of the '.
All of the senior diplomats in the 1930s were veterans of the struggle to win Germany "world power status" in the first years of the 20th century. Hitler's goal of making Germany into the world's greatest power was thus a foreign policy goal that the diplomats embraced quite headily. The German historian Eckart Conze stated about the overlap in viewpoints between the diplomats and the Nazis: "...the top diplomats in the Weimar Republic were opposed to a liberal political order and parliamentarianism. And then the Nazis built political and ideological bridges for them. They announced their intention to reverse the Treaty of Versailles and make the German ''Reich'' into a world power. The majority of the diplomats were able to sign their names on to such a program." In March 1933, Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Prittwitz und Gaffron, the Ambassador to the United States, resigned on the grounds that he could not in good conscience serve the Nazi government; he was the only member of the entire who resigned in protest at the Nazi regime.
Officially, the men of the were supposed to be non-political, but in practice the diplomats formed a "quite exclusive group" with extremely conservative views and values. For these men, unconditional loyalty to the state was the highest possible value, and though the majority of the diplomats were not ideological National Socialists, they served the Nazi regime loyally until the very end. The dominance of the traditional "insiders" at the can be seen that every State Secretary during the Nazi era was a professional diplomat. The State Secretaries of Nazi Germany were Prince Bernhard von Bülow (State Secretary 1930–36), Count Hans Georg von Mackensen (State Secretary 1936–1938 and ambassador to Italy 1938–1942), Baron Ernst von Weizsäcker (State Secretary 1938–1943 and ambassador to the Holy See 1943–1945) and Baron Gustav Adolf Steengracht von Moyland (State Secretary 1943–1945). The overlap in goals between the professional diplomats and the Nazis were well illustrated by the memo on what should be the foreign policy of the Hitler government written by Bülow in March 1933 calling for Germany to recover the borders of 1914 and all of the lost colonies, annexation of Austria, and German domination of Eastern Europe.
During the Neurath years (1932–1938), there were very few "outsiders" allowed into the '. Aside from Ribbentrop, who served as variously as Commissioner of Disarmament (1934–35), Extraordinary Ambassador-at-Large (1935–36), and Ambassador to Great Britain (1936–1938), the most notable of the "outsiders" were Franz von Papen (Ambassador to Austria 1934–1938 and to Turkey 1939–1944), Hans Luther (Ambassador to the United States 1933–1937), Colonel Hermann Kriebel (Consul in Shanghai 1934–1939), and General Wilhelm Faupel (Ambassador to Spain 1936–37). Most diplomats were not believers in National Socialism, but during Nazi rule, many diplomats such as Neurath himself joined the NSDAP and/or the SS as an opportunistic way of improving their career prospects; such self-interested careerism was rampant amongst the German civil service in the Nazi period. Those diplomats involved in the attempts to overthrow Hitler such as Count Ulrich von Hassell, Adam von Trott zu Solz, Count Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg, Richard Kuenzer, Hans Bernd von Haeften, and Edmund Brücklmeir comprised a small minority of the '. The German historian wrote that for those diplomats who chose to become involved in ''Widerstand'', given that they were steeped in Prussian traditions where loyalty to the state was the highest virtue, it required "extraordinary strength of character" for them to go against everything that they had been taught to believe in.
Post-WWII
Founding of the Federal Republic
After Germany's defeat in May 1945, the country was occupied and the German state was abolished by the Allies. The country was administered as four zones controlled respectively by the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union. In August 1949, a German government was reestablished in the western zones, the Federal Republic of Germany, which in its first years had very limited powers. In October 1949, the German Democratic Republic was founded in what had been the Soviet zone. Whereas Georg Dertinger had already been appointed the first minister of foreign affairs of East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In t ...
in 1949, due to the Allied occupation statute
The Occupation Statute of Germany (german: Besatzungsstatut) of April 10, 1949 specified the roles and responsibilities of the newly created government of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the Allied High Commission. It was drawn ...
the of West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 ...
was not reestablished until 15 March 1951.
Adenauer
Chancellor Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (; 5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a Germany, German statesman who served as the first Chancellor of Germany, chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1963. From 1946 to 1966, he was the fir ...
took office as the first Foreign Minister in Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr ...
until he was succeeded by Heinrich von Brentano in 1955. By and large, the men who had served in the new were the same men who had served in the old '. In a ''Bundestag'' debate on 23 October 1952, Adenauer admitted that 66% of the diplomats of the had belonged to the NSDAP, but justified their employment as: "I could not build up a Foreign Office without relying upon such skilled men". Upon Willy Brandt
Willy Brandt (; born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm; 18 December 1913 – 8 October 1992) was a German politician and statesman who was leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from 1964 to 1987 and served as the chancellor of West Ger ...
's taking office as Foreign Minister in the Grand coalition
A grand coalition is an arrangement in a multi-party parliamentary system in which the two largest political parties of opposing political ideologies unite in a coalition government. The term is most commonly used in countries where there are t ...
under Kurt Georg Kiesinger
Kurt Georg Kiesinger (; 6 April 1904 – 9 March 1988) was a German politician who served as the chancellor of West Germany from 1 December 1966 to 21 October 1969. Before he became Chancellor he served as Minister President of Baden-Württember ...
starting in 1966, the office was usually connected with the position of the Vice-Chancellor
A chancellor is a leader of a college or university, usually either the executive or ceremonial head of the university or of a university campus within a university system.
In most Commonwealth and former Commonwealth nations, the chancellor is ...
. From 1974 until 1992—with a short pause in 1982—Hans-Dietrich Genscher
Hans-Dietrich Genscher (21 March 1927 – 31 March 2016) was a German statesman and a member of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), who served as Federal Minister of the Interior from 1969 to 1974, and as Federal Minister for Foreign Affa ...
served as Foreign Minister and continued to champion Brandt's '' Ostpolitik'' while also playing a crucial role in the preparation of German reunification.
Berlin
In 2000 the Foreign Office returned to Berlin where it took up quarters in the former Reichsbank building, which from 1959 to 1990 had served as the seat of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (german: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, ; SED, ), often known in English as the East German Communist Party, was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germa ...
and was enlarged by a newly built annex. The former ministry in Bonn was retained as a secondary seat. The Foreign Office has always stressed its continuity and traditions going back to 1870.
Further historiography and analysis
2010 report by the historical commission
A report entitled '' The Ministry and the Past'' written by historians and released by the German government in October 2010 shows that wartime-era diplomats played an important role in assisting the Nazis in carrying out the Holocaust, and disproved the claim often made after 1945 that German diplomats were "sand in the machine" who acted to moderate the actions of the Nazi regime. In a 2010 interview, the German historian Eckart Conze, who had been in charge of the committee to investigate the war-time actions of the ', stated that the was a "criminal organization" that was as every bit involved in the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" as the SS were. In another interview, Conze stated: "This document makes it clear that all officials in the Foreign Ministry—including low-level office clerks—knew about the mass persecution of Jews and were actively involved in the Holocaust. It was an open secret." In October 1941, when Franz Rademacher visited Belgrade to meet officials of the Government of National Salvation of General Milan Nedić
Milan Nedić ( sr-Cyrl, Милан Недић; 2 September 1878 – 4 February 1946) was a Yugoslav and Serbian army general and politician who served as the chief of the General Staff of the Royal Yugoslav Army and minister of war in the ...
of Serbia, he submitted an expense claim for his trip to his superiors at the after his return to Berlin; on his expenses claim, Rademacher described the purpose of his trip to Belgrade as the "liquidation of Jews". At the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, the was represented by Martin Luther
Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Lutherani ...
, who agreed that the would do everything within its power to persuade the governments of neutral and allied states to hand over their Jewish populations to be exterminated. Later on in 1942, Ambassador Otto Abetz
Heinrich Otto Abetz (26 March 1903 – 5 May 1958) was the German ambassador to Vichy France during the Second World War and a convicted war criminal. In July 1949 he was sentenced to twenty years' hard labour by a Paris military tribunal, he was ...
arranged for the deportation of 25,000 French Jews to the death camps in Poland while Ambassador Hanns Ludin arranged for the deportation of 50,000 Slovak Jews to the death camps. In the spring of 1944, Ambassador Edmund Veesenmayer played a key role in having 400,000 Hungarian Jews deported to Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It c ...
.[Bloch, Michael (1992). ''Ribbentrop''. New York: Crown Publishing, pp. 400–401.]
Kolbe
In 2003, the French historian Lucas Delattre published a biography of Fritz Kolbe
Fritz Kolbe (25 September 1900 – 16 February 1971) was a German diplomat who became a spy against the Nazis in World War II.
Early life
Kolbe was born on 25 September 1900 in Berlin to middle-class parents. His father was a saddle maker. Throu ...
, a mid-ranking diplomat who become a spy for the American Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...
because he believed his country deserved to lose the war on the account of the genocide it was waging against the Jews. Delattre stated that Kolbe really was a case of a diplomat being "sand in the machine" as Kolbe provided intelligence to help his country lose the war, but added sarcastically that if every German civil servant really were "sand in the machine" as almost all of them claimed to be after 1945 that Hitler would never had managed to get anything done. Diplomats like Kolbe were very much the exception, not the rule.
German representation overseas
In addition to the ministry's headquarters in Berlin, Germany has established embassies
A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually deno ...
and consulates around the world.
See also
* Minister for Foreign Affairs (Germany)
, insignia = Bundesadler Bundesorgane.svg
, insigniasize = 80px
, insigniacaption =
, department = Federal Foreign Office
, image = Annalena Baerbock (cropped, 2).jpg
, alt =
, incumbent = Annalena Baerbock
, incumbentsince = 8 December ...
* Cabinet of Germany
* Foreign relations of Germany
* List of diplomatic missions of Germany
This is a list of diplomatic missions of Germany. Historically, the German state of Prussia and several smaller German states had sent emissaries abroad prior to the establishment of the North German Confederation, the precursor to the modern Fede ...
*
* Ambassadors of Nazi Germany
Sources
*
*
*
*
References
External links
*
*
*
{{Authority control
Federal government ministries of Germany
Germany
Foreign relations of Germany
Ministries established in 1870