Carl von Ossietzky - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Carl von Ossietzky 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...

pacifist

Pacifism

Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...

and the recipient of the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize

Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...

. He was convicted of high treason

High treason

High treason is criminal disloyalty to one's government. Participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state are perhaps...

and espionage

Espionage

Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...

in 1931 after publishing details of Germany's alleged violation of the Treaty of Versailles

Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...

by rebuilding an air force

Air force

An air force, also known in some countries as an air army, is in the broadest sense, the national military organization that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army, navy or...

, the predecessor of the Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....

, and training pilots in the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

. In 1990 his daughter, Rosalinde von Ossietzky-Palm, called for a resumption of proceedings, but the verdict was upheld by the Federal Court of Justice

Federal Court of Justice of Germany

The Federal Court of Justice of Germany in Karlsruhe is the highest court in the system of ordinary jurisdiction in Germany. It is the supreme court in all matters of criminal and private law...

in 1992.

Biography

Ossietzky was born in Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, the son of Carl Ignatius von Ossietzky (1848–1891), a Protestant from Upper Silesia

Upper Silesia

Upper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia. Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of Greater Moravia, the Duchy of Bohemia, the Piast Kingdom of Poland, again of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as of...

, and Rosalie (née Pratzka), a devout Catholic who wished for Carl to become a monk

Monk

A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...

. His father worked as a stenographer in the office of a lawyer and senator, but died when Carl was two years old. Ossietzky was baptized in the Catholic Church Kleine Michel in Hamburg on 10 November 1889, and confirmed in the Lutheran Hauptkirche St. Michaelis on 23 March 1904.

The "von" in Ossietzky's name, which would generally suggest noble ancestry, is of unknown origin. Ossietzky himself explained, perhaps half in jest, that it derived from an ancestor's service in a Polish lancer cavalry regiment; the Elector of Brandenburg was unable to pay his two regiments of lancers at one point due to an empty war chest so he instead conferred nobility upon the entirety of the two regiments.

Despite his failure to finish Realschule

Realschule

The Realschule is a type of secondary school in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. It has also existed in Croatia , Denmark , Sweden , Hungary and in the Russian Empire .-History:The Realschule was an outgrowth of the rationalism and empiricism of the seventeenth and...

(a form of German secondary school

Secondary school

Secondary school is a term used to describe an educational institution where the final stage of schooling, known as secondary education and usually compulsory up to a specified age, takes place...

), Ossietzky succeeded in embarking on a career in journalism

Journalism

Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...

, with the topics of his articles ranging from theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

criticism to feminism

Feminism

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...

and the problems of early motorization. He later said that his opposition to German militarism

Militarism

Militarism is defined as: the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests....

during the final years of the German Empire

German Empire

The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...

under William II

William II, German Emperor

Wilhelm II was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, ruling the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. He was a grandson of the British Queen Victoria and related to many monarchs and princes of Europe...

led him, as early as 1913, to become a pacifist

Pacifism

. That year, he married Maud Lichfield-Wood, a Mancunian

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

suffragette

Suffragette

"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...

, born a British colonial officer's daughter and the great grand-daughter of an Indian princess in Hyderabad

Hyderabad State

-After Indian independence :When India gained independence in 1947 and Pakistan came into existence in 1947, the British left the local rulers of the princely states the choice of whether to join one of the new dominions or to remain independent...

. They had one daughter, Rosalinde. During the years of the Weimar Republic

Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...

(1919 – 1933), his political commentaries gained him a reputation as a fervent supporter of democracy

Democracy

Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

and a pluralistic society. In 1921, the German government founded the Arbeits-Kommandos (work squads) led by Major Bruno Ernst Buchrucker. Officially a labour group intended to assist with civilian projects, in reality they were used by Germany to exceed the limits on troop strength set by the Treaty of Versailles

Treaty of Versailles

. Buchrucker's Black Reichswehr

Black Reichswehr

Black Reichswehr was the name for the illegal paramilitary formations created by the Germans during the Weimar Republic, raised despite restrictions imposed by the Versailles Treaty.-Restrictions on German Military Forces after World War I:...

took its orders from a secret group in the German Army known as Sondergruppe R comprising Kurt von Schleicher

Kurt von Schleicher

Kurt von Schleicher was a German general and the last Chancellor of Germany during the era of the Weimar Republic. Seventeen months after his resignation, he was assassinated by order of his successor, Adolf Hitler, in the Night of the Long Knives....

, Eugen Ott, Fedor von Bock

Fedor von Bock

Fedor von Bock was a German Generalfeldmarshall who served in the Wehrmacht during the Second World War. As a leader who lectured his soldiers about the honor of dying for the German Fatherland, he was nicknamed "Der Sterber"...

and Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord

Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord

Kurt Gebhard Adolf Philipp Freiherr von Hammerstein-Equord was a German general who served for a period as Commander-in-Chief of the Reichswehr...

. Buchrucker's Black Reichswehr

Black Reichswehr

became infamous for its practice of murdering Germans suspected of working as informers for the Allied Control Commission. The killings perpetrated by the Black Reichswehr were justifed under the so-called Femegerichte (secret court) system.. These killings were ordered by the officers from Sondergruppe R. Regarding the Femegerichte murders, Ossietzky wrote:

"Lieutenant Schulz (charged with the murder of informers against the Black Reichswehr) did nothing but carry out the orders given him, and that certainly Colonel von Bock, and probably Colonel von Schleicher and General Seeckt, should be sitting in the dock beside him".

Also, he became secretary of the German Peace Society

German Peace Society

The German Peace Society was founded in 1892. It still exists and is known as the Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft - Vereinigte KriegsdienstgegnerInnen...

(Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft). In 1927, he succeeded Kurt Tucholsky

Kurt Tucholsky

Kurt Tucholsky was a German-Jewish journalist, satirist and writer. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Kaspar Hauser, Peter Panter, Theobald Tiger and Ignaz Wrobel. Born in Berlin-Moabit, he moved to Paris in 1924 and then to Sweden in 1930.Tucholsky was one of the most important journalists of...

as editor-in-chief of the periodical Die Weltbühne
Die Weltbühne
Die Weltbühne was a German weekly magazine focused on politics, art, and business. The Weltbühne was founded in Berlin on 7 September 1905 by Siegfried Jacobsohn and was originally created strictly as a theater magazine under the title Die Schaubühne. It was renamed Die Weltbühne on 4 April 1918...

. In 1932, he supported Ernst Thälmann

Ernst Thälmann

Ernst Thälmann was the leader of the Communist Party of Germany during much of the Weimar Republic. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1933 and held in solitary confinement for eleven years, before being shot in Buchenwald on Adolf Hitler's orders in 1944...

's candidacy for the German presidency, though still a critic of the actual policy of the German Communist Party

Communist Party of Germany

The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...

and the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

The Abteilung M Affair

In 1929 Walter Kreiser, one of the writers for Die Weltbühne, published an expose of the training of a special air unit of the Reichswehr

Reichswehr

The Reichswehr formed the military organisation of Germany from 1919 until 1935, when it was renamed the Wehrmacht ....

, referred to as Abteilung M ("M Battalion"), which was secretly training in Germany and in Soviet Russia, in violation of Germany's agreements under the Treaty of Versailles

Treaty of Versailles

. Kreiser and Ossietzky, the paper's editor, were questioned by a magistrate of the Supreme Court about the article later that year, and were finally indicted in early 1931 for "treason and espionage," the assertion being that they had drawn international attention to state affairs which the state had purposefully attempted to keep secret. The arrests were widely seen at the time as an effort to silence Die Weltbühne which had been a vocal critic of the Reichswehr's policies and secret expansion.

Counsel for the defendants pointed out that the information they had published was true, and, more to the point, that the budgeting for Abteilung M had actually been cited in reports by the Reichstag's budgeting commission. The prosecution successfully countered that Kreiser (and Ossietzky, as his editor) should have known that the reorganization was a state secret when he questioned the Ministry of Defense on the subject of Abteilung M and the ministry refused to comment on it. Kreiser and Ossietzky were convicted and sentenced to eighteen months in prison. Kreiser fled Germany but Ossietzky remained and was imprisoned, being released at the end of 1932 for the Christmas amnesty.

Arrest by the Nazis

Ossietzky continued to be a constant warning voice against militarism and Nazism when, in January 1933, Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

was appointed Chancellor

Chancellor of Germany

The Chancellor of Germany is, under the German 1949 constitution, the head of government of Germany...

and the Nazi dictatorship

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

began. Even then, Ossietzky was one of a very small group of public figures who continued to speak out against the Nazi Party. On 28 February 1933, after the Reichstag fire

Reichstag fire

The Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on 27 February 1933. The event is seen as pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany....

, he was arrested and held in so-called protective custody

Protective custody

Protective custody is a type of imprisonment to protect a prisoner from harm, either from outside sources or other prisoners. Many administrators believe the level of violence, or the underlying threat of violence within prisoners, is a chief factor causing the need for PC units...

in Spandau prison

Spandau Prison

Spandau Prison was a prison situated in the borough of Spandau in western Berlin, constructed in 1876 and demolished in 1987 after the death of its last prisoner, Rudolf Hess, to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine. The prison was near, though not part of, the Renaissance-era Spandau Citadel...

. Wilhelm von Sternburg, one of Ossietzky's biographers, surmises that if Ossietzky had had a few more days, he would surely have joined the vast majority of writers who fled the country. In short, Ossietzky underestimated the speed with which the Nazis would go about ridding the country of unwanted political opponents. He was detained afterwards at the concentration camp

Nazi concentration camps

Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...

KZ Esterwegen

KZ Esterwegen was one of a series of camps first established in the Emsland region of Germany near Papenburg in 1933 as prison camps for political prisoners by the Nazi regime. It was one of 15 camps in the Emsland region and was designated as "Lager VII"....

near Oldenburg

Oldenburg

Oldenburg is an independent city in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the western part of the state between the cities of Bremen and Groningen, Netherlands, at the Hunte river. It has a population of 160,279 which makes it the fourth biggest city in Lower Saxony after Hanover, Braunschweig...

, among other camps.

1935 Nobel Peace Prize

Ossietzky's international rise to fame began in 1936 when, already suffering from serious tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

that was not being treated, he was awarded the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize

Nobel Peace Prize

. The government had been unable to prevent this, but they now refused to release him so that he could travel 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...

to receive the prize. In an act of civil disobedience

Civil disobedience

Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance...

, after Hermann Göring

Hermann Göring

Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"...

prompted him to decline the prize, Ossietzky issued a note from the hospital saying that he disagreed with the authorities who had stated that by accepting the prize he would cast himself outside the deutsche Volksgemeinschaft (community of German people):

After much consideration, I have made the decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize which has fallen to me. I cannot share the view put forward to me by the representatives of the Secret State Police
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

that in doing so I exclude myself from German society. The Nobel Peace Prize is not a sign of an internal political struggle, but of understanding between peoples. As a recipient of the prize, I will do my best to encourage this understanding and as a German I will always bear in mind Germany's justifiable interests in Europe.

The award was extremely controversial, prompting two members of the prize committee to resign because they held or had held positions in the Norwegian government. King Haakon VII of Norway

Haakon VII of Norway

Haakon VII , known as Prince Carl of Denmark until 1905, was the first king of Norway after the 1905 dissolution of the personal union with Sweden. He was a member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg...

, who had been present at other award ceremonies, stayed away from the ceremony. The award divided public opinion, and was generally condemned by conservative forces. The leading conservative Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten
Aftenposten
Aftenposten is Norway's largest newspaper. It retook this position in 2010, taking it from the tabloid Verdens Gang which had been the largest newspaper for several decades. It is based in Oslo. The morning edition, which is distributed across all of Norway, had a circulation of 250,179 in 2007...

argued in an editorial that Ossietzky was a criminal who had attacked his country "with the use of methods that violated the law long before Hitler came into power" and that "lasting peace between peoples and nations can only be achieved by respecting the existing laws".

Ossietzky's Nobel Prize was not allowed to be mentioned in the German press, and a government decree forbade German citizens from accepting future Nobel Prizes.

Death

In May 1936 he was sent to the Westend hospital in Berlin-Charlottenburg because of his tuberculosis, but under Gestapo

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

surveillance. He died in the Nordend hospital in Berlin-Pankow, still in police custody, on 4 May 1938, of tuberculosis and from the after-effects of the abuse he suffered in the concentration camps.

Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg

In 1991, the University of Oldenburg was renamed Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg in his honor. This could be seen as a political statement, as Ossietzky's case was being decided upon by the German courts at the time.

1992 court appeal

In 1992, Ossietzky's 1931 conviction was upheld by Germany's Federal Court of Justice, applying the law as it stood in 1931 (this does not mean that the court accepted or retroactively legalized the later Nazi persecution of Ossietzky, which was clearly illegal even under Nazi Germany's law):

According to the case law of the Supreme Court of the German Reich, the illegality of covertly conducted actions did not cancel out the principle of secrecy. According to the opinion of the Supreme Court of the German Reich, every citizen owes his Fatherland a duty of allegiance regarding information, and endeavours towards the enforcement of existing laws may be implemented only through the utilization of responsible domestic state organs, and never by appealing to foreign governments.
–Ruling of the Federal Court of Justice, 3 December 1992

Legacy

Supporters of convicted Israeli whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu

Mordechai Vanunu

Mordechai Vanunu ; is a former Israeli nuclear technician who, citing his opposition to weapons of mass destruction, revealed details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986. He was subsequently lured to Italy by a Mossad agent, where he was drugged and kidnapped by...

and Nobel prize winning Chinese

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

dissident

Dissident

A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause they often effect a dissident movement....

Liu Xiaobo

Liu Xiaobo is a Chinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist who called for political reforms and the end of communist single-party rule in China...

have compared them to Ossietzky.

The International League for Human Rights (ILMR) awards an annual Carl von Ossietzky Medal "to honor citizens or initiatives that promote basic human rights."

On 1963, the East German television produced the film Carl von Ossietzky about Ossietzky's life, starring Hans-Peter Minetti in the title role.

Carl von Ossietzky is portrayed in the comic series Berlin by Jason Lutes

Jason Lutes

Jason Lutes is an American comics creator. His work is mainly historical fiction, but he also works in traditional fiction...

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Biography

The Abteilung M Affair

Arrest by the Nazis

1935 Nobel Peace Prize

Death

Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg

1992 court appeal

Legacy

Further reading

External links