Ernst Heinrich (Weizsäcker) von Weizsäcker (1882 - 1951)

Born 25 May 1882 in Stuttgart, Württemberg, Deutschland

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 4 Aug 1951 at age 69 in Lindau, Bayern, Deutschland

Biography

Ernst (Weizsäcker) von Weizsäcker is Notable.

Ernst Heinrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker was a German naval officer, diplomat and politician. He served as State Secretary at the Foreign Office of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1943, and as its Ambassador to the Holy See from 1943 to 1945. He was a member of the prominent Weizsäcker family, and the father of German President Richard von Weizsäcker and physicist and philosopher Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker.

Weizsäcker was arrested on 25 July 1947 in Nuremberg and was put on trial in the Ministries Trial, also known as the Wilhelmstrasse Trial, after the location of the German Foreign Office in Berlin. The Ministries Trial was one of 12 trials conducted by Nuremberg Military Tribunals in the U.S. occupation zone. These American military tribunals started before and finished during the Berlin blockade 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. Weizsäcker's supporters claimed that he had been closely associated with the anti-Nazi resistance and a moderate force at the Foreign Office during the war.

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, Richard von Weizsäcker, 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, Weizsäcker was found guilty and sentenced to 7 years in prison. Winston Churchill called his sentence a "deadly error". The same year, the sentence was reduced to 5 years. In October 1950, after 3 years and 3 months of detention, he obtained an early release from prison in Landsberg after a new examination of his case by the Legislative Affairs Office of the US High Commissioner for Germany, John J. McCloy. Weizsäcker subsequently published his memoirs, written in prison, in which he portrayed himself as a supporter of the resistance.

Weizsäcker died of a stroke on August 4, 1951 at the age of 69.

Sources

• https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1158812
• Wikidata: Item Q60650, de:Wikipedia