Ernst von Weizsäcker

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Ernst Freiherr von Weizsäcker (25 May 1882 in Stuttgart - 4 August 1951) was a German diplomat. Weizsäcker was the father of Richard von Weizsäcker, who was President of the Federal Republic of Germany 1984-94. See Weizsäcker for the family tree.

He was born Ernst Weizsäcker to his father, Karl Hugo von Weizsäcker, who would become Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Württemberg and raised to personal nobility in 1897, and Paula von Meibom. His father and his family were raised to heritable nobility in 1916.

In 1900, he joined the Kaiserliche Marine to become an officer, serving mainly in Berlin. In 1917 he earned the Iron Cross (both classes) and was made Korvettenkapitän.

Weizsäcker joined the German Foreign Office in 1920 and spent the 1930s in Oslo and Bern. After having been advised to do so, he joined the NSDAP and the SS in 1938, and was made Secretary of State under Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. He was promoted to SS-Brigadeführer on 30 January 1942. Following his request, Weizsäcker was German Ambassador to the Holy See from 1943 to 1945. He died of a stroke in 1951.

[edit] Prosecution for War Crimes

Weizsäcker was arrested in July 1947, in Nuremberg in connection with the Ministries Trial, also known as the Wilhelmstrasse Trial, after the location of the German Foreign Office. He 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 Richard, who appeared as his assistant defense counsel, 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.

The Court was not persuaded, especially when presented with records prepared at the Wannsee Conference by one of his assistants concerning the mass executions of Jews already underway in 1941. Weizsäcker was sentenced to seven years, later reduced to five.

Weizsäcker was released as part of a general amnesty in 1950, after which he published his memoirs, in which he portrayed himself as a supporter of the resistance. Some defenders have continued to argue that his record was mixed, that he did, in fact, work against the goals of the Nazi government while serving it, and that his sentence was unjust^{[citation needed]}; Winston Churchill allegedly called his sentence a "deadly error"^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Notes

Note regarding personal names: Freiherr is a title, translated as Baron, not a first or middle name. The female forms are Freifrau and Freiin.